Line of Fire:

by Andy McNab

  Yulia was back at the keyboards and Phoenix kneeling next to her, jabbing a finger at the mapping and satellite imagery. I could see where the plasticuffs had come from. A big bundle of them hung from the cab panel – they had been used to control the spaghetti of cables. Yulia looked back at the body beneath 007. Her face was ashen and beads of moisture glistened on her top lip. Her elbows were pressed into her sides, like she was trying to make her body even smaller than it already was. She reached for a water bottle and took a couple of big gulps. Phoenix got her back to work with a gentle reminder to focus on the screens, then passed her a power bar from a box next to the plastic-wrapped case of water and ripped one open for himself. These lads needed to keep up their food intake or they’d implode. Yulia just needed the energy – she had a lot going on. The screens were like PowerPoint visuals of Gabe’s lecture in the Beamer. Superimposed on a large-scale sea navigation map of the south-west of England, thick pink lines ran into and out from the north and south coasts. On another screen, a map of the world showed hundreds of similar blue lines running from the UK to everywhere on the planet, west across the Atlantic to the States, east into Europe, south to Africa, south-east to Asia. The UK looked like a puppet-master with his hands full of strings heading to the USA, along with the rest of the world. The cables had exotic names like TAT 13, Apollo, Asia Africa Europe Gateway, and APNG-2, which whirled its way to Australia and Papua New Guinea. A mad-looking cable named CUCN seemed to dart all over the world, via Korea and the US, before heading to China, Japan and Guam. Exactly as Gabe had said, the hundreds of cables connecting the planet all came ashore into one of Cornwall’s landing stations to be bounced off to wherever the next email or porn download had been clicked for from Cape Town to Riyadh to Anchorage.

  Phoenix and Yulia were looking hard for something. They kept checking the onscreen mapping against a notebook, maybe of today’s recces. The other two in the back were just as busy, 007 astride me, the other – I thought of him as Tailgate because that was where his back was resting – still cradling his weapon in the crease of his hips, ready to react if we got a drama from the occupants of the vehicle whose brake lights had betrayed me, the police or whatever other cavalry they called in. The only thing out of place in this extreme efficiency was Yulia, the geek, protected by the muscles and brains around her.

  Could they be military? Not only was this group well squared away and switched on, there was a higher command and control. Unless my Russian was completely to fuck, Phoenix had said, ‘We will report and will be told what to do with him.’

  They and I had no control over what would happen next – and I had none over what Gabe and the others would do next. Were they going to make the situation worse by calling in the cavalry or continue looking for me? Fuck it. I was going to cut away from that. Don’t worry about what you can’t change.

  Phoenix had said the mission was paramount, and he was absolutely correct. The body of my mission was now within spitting distance. I had given myself enough time to sort out my head and I needed to escape as soon as possible. The mission hadn’t changed, just the way I needed to carry it out.

  We were still on tarmac but not on a B road any more. I could hear vehicles coming from the opposite direction and the van didn’t need to slow and push its way to the side to let them pass. There were very few wide roads to the west, towards Land’s End, so maybe we were heading east towards Penzance. And all the while, I watched Yulia work under Phoenix’s supervision, hitting the keyboards, making files of what they’d seen under the manholes, cross-referencing it with the mapping.

  It must have been about thirty minutes later that we were about to make a right turn. We waited in the road, indicators clicking, as vehicles rushed past us from the opposite direction. A heavy truck rocked the van in its wake. Phoenix dived into one of the bags and pulled out the antenna box I’d seen on the caravan. He passed it through the cab hatch, keeping the two leads from it which he plugged into a laptop.

  He stopped to look back at me, studying my face as his lips moved. Maybe he was describing me to someone, asking them what they wanted him to do with me because I affected their mission. I was one of those what-ifs: what if they were compromised? Was I a liability or a bargaining chip?

  It got me thinking. What was their mission? It certainly felt like an attack. They had weapons, and they would use them at the drop of a hat to protect their recce. Why not an attack on the cables? Or on just one? Was that why they were doing so much looking and checking, because they needed to identify one specific cable to destroy? Taking down Gabe’s kids’ Facebook wouldn’t bring the planet to a halt, but hitting the flow of information that linked two of the world’s biggest stock exchanges certainly would.

  Whatever they were up to, it wasn’t a terrorist attack. This was too organized, too military, too determined.

  A state actor must be controlling it.

  And that, if true, made what was happening in the back of the van an act of war.

  38

  Sharp jabs on the brakes jerked my head from side to side as we travelled along a road that I guessed was narrowing.

  I was still pinned down, hands still plasticuffed and a cushion under 007’s arse as he leant back towards the Ripcurl weapons bag and pulled out a Vector, checked the thirty-three-round mag, interchangeable with a Glock pistol’s, and made it ready. Throughout, he chatted in low, confident murmurs with Tailgate, who was still sitting with his back against his namesake. They agreed that I should have been dead by now. They knew Phoenix’s decision was the right one, but that wasn’t the point as far as they were concerned.

  I got the feeling we were nearly there – wherever ‘there’ was.

  The antenna was passed back through the hatch for Phoenix to pack away and secure: good military drills whether on a ship or in an armoured vehicle.

  Phoenix had his mouth to the hatch once more as the van came to a stop at his command. The engine stopped, and both front doors opened without the cab light sparking up. The doors closed on their first click.

  Phoenix and Tailgate were weapons-ready to back the two outside if needed.

  The Maglite attached to the ceiling was still on and I took the chance to look at Yulia, but all I could see was her mop of hair as she focused on the screen in front of her.

  The cold steel of a fat suppressed barrel was shoved into my neck and made me hope that a number of things hadn’t happened. First, that Gabe, Rio and Jack hadn’t found us, followed, and were about to take action. Then that they hadn’t warned anyone. And, finally, that the snide hadn’t got a text to the Owl telling him what had happened. Any of those three things meant the VW would be found and compromised, and these lads would fight and had the means to do it – and before they did that, Phoenix would give the order to drop me. In his boots, I would.

  After a minute or so of complete silence, there was a gentle double knock on the side door. Phoenix swivelled and slid it open. Slowly and deliberately, he stepped out and scanned around, then motioned for Tailgate to join him while 007 stayed where he was and maintained his Vector in place on my neck.

  I soon saw what was up. As Tailgate clambered out, he had a torch with him on a length of paracord, and the fibre-optic device.

  We weren’t at a traditional war memorial this time, but some kind of granite Celtic cross set on top of a grassy mound, with a little railing around it and flowers in jars mounted on a lump of granite engraved with words I couldn’t make out. I’d been hoping it would give me an indication of where I was. Maybe it was the meeting place for some weird Cornwall ley-line sect to honour those who’d got blown away to the spirit world.

  One of the Wolves from the cab handed his Vector to his mate, then opened the shovel and began to dig at the base of the Celtic cross, slowly and carefully like he was probing for mines.

  Yulia glanced across at the open side door and, in the dull glow of the laptop screens, I managed to get eye-to-eye. She tilted her head a little to be more face-on to
me, and gave a fleeting smile. Fuck knew what it meant – maybe she was trying to tell me things were going to be okay. All I was concerned about was how to grab hold of her and get us both away from there. Nothing in my mind had changed, and I wouldn’t let it. If you start worrying about the situations you’re in rather than why you’re there in the first place, then the whole situation starts to spiral out of control in your head … and that means you fuck up. So all I had to do was concentrate on the mission.

  The Wolf had found what he was testing for. He used the shovel to peel back the turf, like a TV gardener creating a work of art for the Chelsea Flower Show. Tailgate got down on his knees with the torch and endoscope. Phoenix was on his way back.

  I looked at the laptop screens in anticipation and, moments later, the three of us saw what I’d seen at the war memorial. No gungy water, no spiders, no cables, just a steel plate with a padlock on each side, and no doubt some thermal triggers in case anything bigger than a mole decided to tunnel past.

  Yulia looked at Phoenix. ‘Yes! Nigella!’

  Either she was late answering a question about who her favourite celebrity chef was, or they had found the cable they were looking for and it had a name. Phoenix gave a sharp nod, then spun on his heel and walked the four or five paces back to the others. Tailgate was still on his knees controlling the endoscope and torch; the other two just stood there, weapons in the shoulder and covering. They were resting, but ready.

  There was some murmuring I couldn’t make out, but the tone told me it was still good news about the discovery. The torch was turned off and the endoscope was being withdrawn. The guy with the shovel got to his knees once more in preparation for returfing.

  They’d obviously done well, but what did that mean? Were they going to detonate a device?

  Then, as the turf was rolled back, I thought: Why have they done that? This still had to be a recce: that was why they were leaving no sign. Both memorials had steel plates covering what must be a critical cable. To come back and access ‘Nigella’ at two locations and detonate devices would really fuck it up big-time.

  The turf was being gently patted down.

  There was more to come. There was more of a plan.

  39

  The team ghosted aboard the VW and we rolled slowly back the way we had come, along what I presumed was the minor road.

  Phoenix had already fed the antenna box through the gap in the cab panel, connected it to one of the laptops and was tapping away, no doubt explaining their success. More important to me was who was on the other end, what they wanted done now that they’d found Nigella and, the big one, what they wanted to do with me.

  Fuck it. Time to cut away. No amount of second-guessing was going to help me get out of the back of this thing and grip Yulia. My only crumb of comfort was knowing that the jeans pinning down my hands were now just as wet as I was.

  Phoenix was reading the laptops. His head blocked the screens so I couldn’t make anything out on them – not that I could have done anyway from two or three metres away. Also, my spoken Russian was all right but I’d never been too clever on reading Cyrillic.

  Phoenix laid a hand on Yulia’s shoulder and muttered a few sentences she acknowledged with a nod. Then he pushed his face up against the panel hatch, issued instructions to the two in the front and the antenna was passed back. He immediately handed it to Yulia, who stowed it back in the Ripcurl.

  Phoenix stayed on his knees and turned to address the other two Wolves. Tailgate sat with his knees astride me, his Vector resting on his thighs. 007’s Vector was on my chest, still pointing at my chin and head. We all were waiting for what the commander had to say.

  When the words came, they were very clear. ‘We found it – we are withdrawing.’

  He gave Yulia a congratulatory thump on the back that took her to the mat to join me. I remained looking confused and concerned, not that it was helping me. I was sure I didn’t even come into their thought process. I was just hazardous cargo that was packed correctly, controlled and safe.

  As Yulia pushed herself back up, showing neither embarrassment nor anger, 007 and the other two nodded their own approval, then laughed about her lack of back muscle.

  Phoenix let the humour go on for a couple of seconds, then got back to business. ‘It’s a daylight pick-up. But we move in good order. The campsite, then home. Yulia, well done, an excellent job.’

  Again she gave no reaction.

  007 had a question I’d been waiting for. ‘What about this one?’ He jerked his head down as if no one knew what he was on about.

  Phoenix’s orders were clear. ‘He comes with us. He is the reason we exfiltrate as soon as possible because we do not know what problem he represents. They want to know how he affects phase two. Questions?’

  There were none. Phoenix grabbed the bundle of plasticuff cables and shoved them into one of the Ripcurls.

  My hands were really starting to swell and get painful under 007 but, fuck it, there was nothing I could do about that. All I could think about was this group and their good skills. They were leaving nothing behind, apart from Gabe and the crew, but they couldn’t do anything about that.

  Clearly, that was where I would come in later: they’d want to find out what was happening so they could adjust the plan for phase two, which had to be the attack. I was sure the small inconvenience of a carload of unknowns wouldn’t stop it. I would have done exactly the same after a successful recce, making sure the decks were as clear as they could be for the next team, maybe this team.

  The VW eventually stopped on the main and a couple of trucks powered past from right to left. If I had my directions correct, that would be west. We turned to follow them.

  They were now on their exfiltration phase, and that was when many operations failed. Lesser-trained players became slack in their drills because they thought their job was done, so they fucked up and got killed. I wasn’t expecting that from this lot, which was unfortunate: it would be even harder for me to get free of the van and make sure I was dragging Yulia with me.

  The Maglite in the ceiling lit the controlled frenzy as everything but the Vectors was stowed away in the Ripcurls. The laptops went into thick bubble-wrap sleeves and the cables were neatly coiled ready for reuse.

  007 stayed where he was, clearly pissed off not to be part of this action. Yulia was helping after a fashion, but really it was only Phoenix and Tailgate who were doing anything. I wished my hands were coiling, packing, doing anything to get them working again, ready to make a run for it with Yulia. No way did I need the plasticuffs to be tighter now. My wrists had swollen and the fuckers were cutting in.

  There was nothing I could do while the van was moving. The third party would be around us, which was good for me as it would provide witnesses and a sanctuary, but I had to assume the team wouldn’t have any qualms about spreading the good news with their Vectors if anyone obstructed their mission – and that meant real people taking hits as they flipflopped their way to the shower block.

  40

  I had no choice. I’d have to attack at the caravan site. The alternative would be wait, wait, wait for the perfect moment – and the perfect moment never comes. The only way you can say it’s perfect is if you’ve done it and been successful. Until then it’s just a punt. My mantra now was the old special-forces standby: react to the situation in front of you. Anything else meant shit.

  The camper van picked up speed on the main drag.

  Yulia had finished packing the bags and they were all zipped up. She lay on top of the pile, eyes closed, her hair covering her face.

  I’d been trying to work out how she’d found herself on this job. Clearly, the team liked her, and they weren’t holding her against her will, but something about her didn’t fit.

  Phoenix had finally got his back against the cab panel now the laptops were out of the way, and was in exactly the same pose as Tailgate, knees up with his Vector in the crease of his hip. Not sleeping, but dozing.

  I wi
shed I could say the same about 007.

  In a perverse way, I was glad Gabe and the others hadn’t found me and decided to ram the vehicle or mount some other kind of heroics. It would have been bloody. Not that I was concerned about the individuals taking a risk: it was big boys’ rules and they were big ugly lads. It was more to do with the feeling of responsibility I had for them: I didn’t want them making a decision that would fuck them up even more than they already were. Apart from the snide, of course. I had plans for him.

  There was a little part of me, too, just a little, that said this would be easier for me because I was on my own, only responsible for myself. If it went to rat-shit, there’d be nobody but myself to blame. It sort of put a damper on the thoughts I’d had about working with people while I was running from Rio’s house. I cut away: navel gazing wasn’t going to help me out of this.

  My hands were completely numb. I tried adjusting them and got a slap on the cheek from 007 and a wagging finger. ‘No, no, no.’ As if I needed any more indication that these lads were not only professional and competent but confident. There was no need for a big macho-slapping because it wasn’t necessary. That might come if I didn’t obey them, but again, I’d have only myself to blame.

  There was a tap from the driver’s side of the cab panel. It snapped Phoenix out of his doze. He turned and shoved his face to the gap. A set of keys was passed through to him, and whatever was said, it was good news. He got down on his knees again to give Yulia a shake, and his expression told them they all needed to get switched on.

  41

  Phoenix turned to Tailgate. ‘Go with Foma, and take weapons. Bag them and use them only if you must.’ He checked his watch as he glanced down at me. ‘Just in case they have come looking.’

  I’d lost all track of time. All I could see through the hatch and a small area of windscreen was headlights bathing trees and bushes either side of the narrow lane we were on. ‘Forty-five. That is all you have.’