Line of Fire:

by Andy McNab

  He recovered enough to curl most of his body into a ball, apart from his prosthetic leg, which lay out straight. I grabbed hold of it and twisted to open it up.

  ‘Nick, Nick – please!’

  Anger got the better of me. He had to pay for putting our lives at risk and for being a snide. I dropped to my knees and swung down again into his face.

  It never landed. Hands grabbed me from behind.

  Rio was at my ear. ‘Mate – what the fuck? You’ve got to stop!’

  Then there were two sets of hands, and Gabe was growling as he dragged me away.

  Rio jumped between us. ‘Nick, calm!’

  Gabe couldn’t bend down because of his false leg so he stood stooped, his arms around me in a bear-hug to stop mine swinging. I was on my arse by now and I could feel his stubble on the back of my neck.

  I turned as best I could to the right. ‘Yulia? Where’s Yulia?’

  She was with them, her face illuminated by the habitation lights and just paces from my Vector. She wasn’t that interested in what was happening, just stared out towards the coast.

  ‘Listen, I’m okay. Weapon, control my weapon. Get the weapon. Get the mobile. Check his fucking mobile.’

  58

  It was pointless struggling against Gabe. The argument wasn’t with him. ‘He’s been telling the Owl what we’ve been doing.’ I spat the words like poison. ‘He’s the Owl’s man. He has been from the start. The fucking snide. Check the mobile. Think about it. The Owl offered us the job. I didn’t have to say a word. Someone told him what the plan was. That fucking thing is a snide.’

  Jack wiped blood from his face as he uncoiled himself. ‘No – no! I haven’t. Nick, you’re wrong. Please!’

  I waved at the mobile on the ground. ‘Check the fucking thing – see who he moved off stag for.’

  Rio gave Jack the death stare as he bent down and retrieved the device. ‘Better not be prepping us to get dead.’

  Jack watched him straighten with the phone in his good hand.

  ’Because if you are a disloyal cunt, I’ll be ending your life right here.’

  Gabe let go of me and passed me my Vector. Then he grabbed Rio’s useless arm as he scrolled with the other. ‘Make sure of this shit. If it’s true, we’ll both do him. You,’ he jabbed a finger at Jack, ‘you just keep shutting the fuck up and stay there.’

  Rio was still thumbing as I got to my feet and stood over Jack. I ignored him: Rio’s reaction to what he was reading was far more important. ‘What’s he been doing?’

  Rio passed me the mobile, and Gabe stood at my shoulder as I flicked through the texts. Rio had bent down to Jack and was shaking his head. ‘You’re at it again, you stupid fuck.’

  The texts were all to one number and, from the tone and little in-jokes, she was really getting to like Jack. She felt she knew where he was coming from, and really wanted to meet him when she returned from China.

  Rio was already interrogating. ‘What’s she doing there?’

  Jack was trying to explain through his sheer panic. ‘She’s a lawyer, she’s working on a construction contract in Shanghai. I know what it looks like …’

  Rio’s response was more pity than piss-take. ‘Mate? Really? What it looks like?’

  Gabe and I were reading long-distance love, but it looked pretty much one-way traffic. Gabe was more angry than compassionate. ‘What you doing? You met her yet? You given her any money yet? Don’t you learn?’

  Jack lay on his back, his head in the leaf litter. His eyes were on me. ‘Nick, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go against what we agreed. I just wanted to bring the mobile to keep contact with her. It’s important to me. I want to see if it’s for real.’

  The course of true love wasn’t my concern right now – but compromise was. ‘Did you use the other phone to text her, the one I gave you? I checked and you’d used it. You sent texts. Were they to her?’ I threw the mobile down to him. ‘For all you know, this could be the Owl on the other end, you stupid bastard. Latching on to you, knowing you’d fucked up last time. He could be following us right now.’

  Jack looked like he was going to make a grab for the mobile, then thought better of it. ‘No, no.’ His hands came up as if to shield himself from the hatred bearing down on him. ‘He would have found us by now, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have left us all this time. We have Yulia – he isn’t going to waste any time getting her, is he? Nick, think about it. The phone is clean, I swear.’

  Annoyingly, he had a point.

  ‘Nick, I swear I never used the work mobile, never. This is the mobile I had charging in the car when you used it by the caravan site, not the work one. Both the phones are the same. I’ve been texting till the battery ran low and I just put it in to charge it up. I know, I fucked up, but I’ve done nothing with our phones. The one back at the forestry block – that was our phone. This is my personal one. I got it a day before you came to the barn, just for her. I was being careful. After last time I thought I’d keep her at arm’s length.’

  Rio liked his conviction but still couldn’t understand the logic. ‘Really? Last time? And you know this is different. How do you know?’

  Maybe Jack didn’t hear. ‘No one’s had anything to do with it. I bought it second-hand. It’s pay-as-you-go. No one knows, I swear.’

  He finally picked up the mobile and offered it to me as if my taking it back and inspecting it would convince me.

  ‘So you never used the work mobile to text anyone about anything?’

  The phone was still in his hand, held up.

  ‘I promise. Nick, I’ve never met the Owl. I don’t even know what he looks like. I’ve never spoken to him. I know I shouldn’t have brought the mobile to keep in contact with her, but I did and I’m sorry.’

  Rio took the mobile off him because it was clear I wasn’t going to, and started to work his thumb again. Gabe was unimpressed. ‘For fuck’s sake, stop begging. Put your arm down, get a grip.’

  Rio was still flicking through, the screen lighting his face. ‘Her name’s Gail.’

  Gabe’s look said what we were all thinking.

  Jack insisted, ‘She’s real, I know it.’

  Rio threw the mobile back to him. ‘All I’m reading is love shit to her or from her to him. Mate,’ he looked down, ‘you gotta switch on. Where did you find her, RipOffJack.com?’

  Jack was like a broken record. ‘Look, you have to believe me. I’ve done nothing. I don’t know the Owl. No one’s approached me. It was just to keep in contact with her. Please, I am your friend, you are my friends.’

  He got no answer. The other two were waiting for me to reply, but I wanted him to keep bubbling away in case he tripped himself up.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I left my stag but I just needed to contact her. I swear she knows nothing about what we’re doing. That’s why I had to keep on texting, letting her believe I was still at the barn. I had no choice.’

  I expected him to carry on with the same thing all night if we let him. It was now time for me.

  ‘Okay, so why did the Owl suggest we work for him before I’d even said a word? Is that just coincidence, or what? Explain that.’

  No answer came, and Rio jumped into the vacuum. ‘Mate, they could have put a device in the barn. Think about it. They were putting one in my house – maybe they did his place first. Don’t listen to what he says about the barn being clean when we got there. He’s always got his artistic head stuck up his arse. How would he know?’

  Jack looked between the two of us, trying to work out if Rio was his saviour. ‘They could have, Nick. I’m sorry – I was just going to text Gail. Nothing more, I swear.’

  Gabe was getting on board with Rio. ‘You sure you’re not getting ripped off? Are you sure she’s for real?’

  Jack nodded. ‘She hasn’t asked for anything. All we do is text. When she comes back we’ll make contact properly. It feels right, Gabe.’

  I took the mobile off Jack and offered it to Yulia. ‘You know about th
ese scams?’

  She was still mesmerized by the coastal lights. ‘Yes, of course. It’s easy money.’

  I handed over the mobile. ‘Have a look at this, then. Can you tell from that if he’s being scammed, ripped off?’

  She scrolled at speed through the never-ending stream of words and her answer took her less than a minute. ‘Yes, it’s a love-bomb pack. You can buy them on the dark web. They contain everything for a scam like this – photos, videos, texts, play sheets. Even false IDs. It’s a scam. And it’s a bad one, cheap.’

  Gabe was pissed off with either Jack or himself, I couldn’t work out which. Maybe both. ‘Fuck, I knew it.’

  Jack wouldn’t believe it. ‘I know I was ripped off last time, but this is different.’

  She handed the mobile back to me and ignored everyone else. I was her point of contact. I was the one who would talk to the Owl about her. ‘Of course it’ll be different the second time round. Most men who’ve been scammed go back and try again. They just want to be loved. This was probably the same scammers, using Plan B. After that, they’ll try a third time, Plan C. That’s normally coming at you as online detectives who’ll recover your money, at a cost that increases every time they come close, of course.

  ‘All Gail does is reinforce what Jack has been talking about or asking. That way, he bonds to her quicker and even more intensely than he did the first time. The target will have less money or goods after the first attack, so to suck more, they need him to feel even more connected. There is still money to be had from men when they have no more in the bank. There are pensions, maybe a house to sell. They are so gullible – they will steal or even kill for you. It’s simple with men.’

  59

  In spite of myself, I’d come over to the other way of thinking.

  ‘Do not hide anything or lie to any of us again.’ I’d forced it out. ‘It will get us all fucked up. You understand?’

  With slow apologetic nods he went to get up out of the leaf litter, but he had some problems with his false leg. ‘Sorry again, everyone. I fucked up. Sorry.’

  I held out a hand for him to pull himself upright.

  He had pain in his stump, probably because I’d more or less pulled his prosthetic out of its joint. I had to help him down again so he could sort himself out.

  ‘Thanks, Nick, thanks.’

  Rio followed him down and started helping him sort his leg metal. ‘For fuck’s sake, mate, they’re going to take your house. That’s all your family’s got left, isn’t it?’

  Jack didn’t say anything, but his body language spoke for him. He was fast sinking into an abyss. Gabe noticed it too. ‘Right, let’s get on with this. I knew we should have gone and gripped them last time. Yulia, you know how to find these fucks?’

  Her shrug became a nod.

  ‘Okay, let’s go and find them. Bring Gail to us, trap her, trap whoever, whatever it takes to fuck them up big-time.’

  Gabe stared at me, waiting. I nodded back. ‘I get it. But that’s for another day. What about the Owl? The mission? We get ourselves safe by meeting the Owl, then delivering Yulia. Jack should just dump Gail and we all get on with what we need to do. We need to sort this out soon as. It’s a health-and-safety matter, mate. Jack’s problem is just anger.’

  Rio was onside, but the wrong side. ‘Mate, say they’re in the UK. I’ll take Gabe and Jack and we’ll go and fuck ’em up.’ He held up his Vector. ‘Stick one of these in ’em and we’ll get results – might even get cash out of ’em. Repay Jack and we’ll be quids in. You and Yulia can sort our shit out with the Owl. You don’t need us for that, do you? Two birds with one stone, easy.’

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Too risky. We split up, we lose integrity and we fail. This can be done once we get ourselves safe. Say we do this and Yulia finds where they are. What if they’re in another country? What do we do then? Nothing. We can’t do anything until we’ve sorted ourselves out here. So what’s the difference?’

  Gabe must have known that was coming because the reply was instant. ‘I’m angry with the scammers, and I’m angry with him over there. But so what? He might be soft in the head but he’s a mate. We got history.’ Gabe bent down and tapped his prosthetic. ‘The poor fucker’s been through enough already without all this shit annihilating him. It’s killed his confidence and any chance of sorting himself out.

  ‘Jack was the one who gripped us all to go to the Arctic. He was the one who gave us our dignity and confidence back when no one else gave a fuck. But now look at him.’

  Gabe pointed as if we didn’t know who he was talking about. But it wasn’t for effect: this was coming from the heart, and it could cause a drama. You have to work with nature or you lose. I knew it was look-and-listen time.

  ‘He’s an emotional wreck. Why would you let that shit happen to you again? We, us three, we need to sort it out now. Because you know what? It could easily have been one of us sad fucks. I want retribution, simple as that.’

  Rio was still on the wrong side. ‘Nick, you get it, I know you do. That’s what we do, don’t we? We look out for each other. It’s the only thing that distinguishes us from the pencil necks.

  ‘Listen, if we fuck up with this Owl business and become history, I want to go down knowing I’ve done something good, something meaningful, for a mate. Shit, we know lads who got themselves killed saving their mates. We might be out of the army but is the army out of us?

  ‘Chinese parliament, right? So, my twopence-worth is, fuck the Owl, fuck it all. Just get out there, find these scammers, and sort that shit out before anything else. This is more important, Nick. We all need to help him. You need to get us to those bastards, then you can sort out the Owl. Priorities, mate.’

  I checked out Gabe, who nodded, then added: ‘Got to give Jack mates’ rates.’

  As Chinese parliaments went, it was a majority verdict. If I held out, would they go it alone? They were grown-ups: I didn’t have any power over them. We had to keep together, no matter what, or we’d fail on all fronts and we knew what that would mean.

  ‘Okay, you’re on.’

  There were nods from Gabe and Rio.

  ‘But it’s got to be about the cash. Let’s get it back and stop them fucking up any more lives. So we’ll find out who they are and where they are.’ I turned to Yulia. ‘You sure you can find them?’

  She shrugged. ‘Easy.’

  She looked about as enthusiastic as Jack did. He must have felt drained at being ripped off yet again, and she was probably pissed off that her job interview with the Owl was on the back burner. But she had a glint in her eye that said she was going with it anyway – anything to help her achieve her aim.

  ‘Okay, let’s get back to the hide, sort ourselves out, and move on. We’ve made enough noise and light here.’

  Everybody made a move, apart from Yulia. Her eyes had fixed themselves on the coastal lights again. I grabbed her arm. ‘Come on.’

  ‘You see those dishes, Nick?’

  I looked down at the coast and the ribbon of light, and finally made out what she was talking about. Up till now there had been much more important things to look at.

  ‘That’s GCHQ’s station at Bude. For people like me, that is Mecca.’ She was transfixed.

  I studied the collection of satellite dishes dotted over the area, like badly planted cauliflowers, red lights flashing on top of tall communication towers, all contained within a floodlit perimeter.

  ‘That is where Nigella’s data goes – as well as hundreds of millions of cell and landline calls every single day. All that data sucked up, more than even the NSA can collate. Ninety per cent of the entire planet’s data has been generated in the past two years, Nick. What you’re looking at there is the world’s largest surveillance programme in human history.’

  There was almost a religious tone in her voice, as if she really was looking at a holy place.

  She turned to me. ‘Nick, you are the world’s information superpower, but the
re is so much data that you miss so much. I need to be part. I can help maximize that data. You will tell the Owl, won’t you?’

  60

  It was just after 0100 and we were heading to the fat part of the UK. More people, more buildings, more places to hide. We had enough fuel to get us to Bristol. There would be no refuelling on this trip. Once we were safely in the city, Yulia would find out where Jack’s scammers were located.

  We’d packed everything into the back of the Beamer, Vectors in the footwells, and drove along the minors, biting into the last of the power bars.

  We had all offered to take our turn driving but Jack insisted. Maybe it was his way of trying to make it up to us, to show he was still one of the group. I didn’t know what was going in his head but as long as it made him feel better why not let it continue? Besides, I reckoned he quite liked using the suicide spinner.

  Yulia had concluded that, because the grammar was so bad, the scammers were probably Brits. Foreign spammers who learnt English at school usually strung sentences together correctly. It was a flaw. We would see. First we had to find them, and then we’d decide how to deal with them. I understood the loyalty between the three in the Beamer, even though I was a newcomer. It had been a long time since I’d worked with others and I’d forgotten the drive and devotion soldiers had to protect each other. It’s what drives winners of the Victoria Cross. It was nothing to do with Queen, country or bravery. It was all about protecting their mates. I thanked Gabe and Rio silently for reminding me. The Owl would be out there right now looking for us, wanting to get his hands on Yulia. He had his mission to complete. And, of course, part of that mission was what he had planned for us four. Well, he would just have to wait.

  Yulia was busy checking Gail’s profile on Jack’s mobile. She was still sure it was a set-up. It was the same style of picture that she would have used herself – an extreme close-up, with no background that could be checked. What I found most interesting was that Gail looked a lot like Claudia, except her hair wasn’t in a bun – she had a wig on with a long ponytail falling over her right shoulder.