Detonator
Page 31
A spider’s web of cracks appeared in the top corner of the Alfa’s rear screen as I went left, and the round exited through the window just behind the passenger headrest.
Another shrieked through, punching a hole the size of a fist in the centre of the glass and burying itself in the dash.
I floored the accelerator pedal on the approach to the level crossing. The lights flashed and the barrier started to lower when I was ten away. I kept going.
The paintwork on Luca’s roof took some punishment, and his suspension didn’t take bumping over the railway track at speed too well, but the SUV came off worse. It managed to get under the first barrier without losing everything above the bonnet, but hit the second head-on.
I put some distance between us as Rexho smashed the entire structure off its mounting and went into a ninety-degree skid. He added another two parked cars to his scorecard, sorted himself, and was thirty behind me when I took the next left, along the remains of the old city wall.
This was the highest-risk stretch for me.
I couldn’t step on the gas.
It was too narrow to dodge and weave.
And if my plan was going to work, I needed him to be close enough not to be able to take evasive action.
His headlamps started to fill my rear-view again as I passed the shop where I’d bought the maps and then the boutique hotel. I careered through the small square overlooking the water.
Every parking space was taken.
I reckoned the SUV’s fucked-up radiator grille was ten behind me as the scaffolding-covered apartment block loomed ahead.
I took a round in the right shoulder as I hit the throttle again but I still had enough control to swing the wheel left and take out the last two upright poles.
For a heartbeat, fuck-all happened.
Then the timber planks began to cascade off their supports and a few hundred tubes of heavy metal and sheets of tarp crashed down to fill the space between the front of the building and the harbour wall.
I hit the brakes as soon as I was a safe distance away. I got out, but didn’t walk back. I just needed to make sure all that shit had landed on Rexho’s head.
It had.
The front of the SUV had been flattened. The roof was half the height it had been two minutes ago.
But when the last pole and plank had fallen and the dust had started to clear, I saw movement behind what was left of the windscreen.
I scrambled over the debris and peered through the driver’s window.
Rexho turned his very bloody head towards me. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, but no sound came out.
It would take a squad of firemen and cutting equipment to extract him. And the chances were that he’d be dead before they arrived.
But I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
I took off Anna’s sash, reached inside, looped it twice around his throat, and pulled it tight.
He probably thought he was being fast-tracked to Paradise. I hoped he’d end up somewhere he could carry on feeling the pain.
As shutters started to open further down the street and across the square, I slid back behind the wheel of Luca’s slightly bruised Alfa, draped the sash back around my shoulders, and drove away. Keeping a memento wouldn’t bring them back. But I knew that any time I looked at it I was now going to feel a little bit better.
EPILOGUE
They stitched my nostril and sorted the rest of the damage at the hospital a little later that morning, a couple of floors above the pathology lab where Anna and Nicholai had been taken.
Luca was very understanding about the damage to his wagon, and keen to bring me up to speed on the GIS. They’d picked up the coffin. The rods of depleted uranium 235 inside it had come from a decommissioned Oscar-11 Class sub. Its ID code had been stamped into the casing.
Three rods was enough to make a very big dirty bomb, irrespective of whether they detonated it in Otranto or in St Peter’s Square. No wonder the GIGN, TIGRIS and the GIS had been going ballistic for Dijani and his crew.
Anna and Nicholai did show signs of radiation poisoning, but not at a critical level. He hadn’t been able to meet my eye when he told me that.
The last three members of Dijani’s cell were in custody. One of them seemed to be keen to trade in his passport to Paradise for a place in their witness-protection scheme. He wasn’t telling them everything, but had fed them one or two details.
He’d confirmed that Rome was in their sights.
They’d been tempted by the idea of reminding the world about Gedik Ahmed’s great victory in Otranto in 1480, but St Peter’s was a more iconic target. The cradle of Christianity. And since the Pope continued to ignore his security advisers and walk among the infidel, they had been confident of success.
I liked Luca a lot, and not just because he’d saved my life. But I found him tough to be around. The sharply chiselled crusading journo I’d met in the mattress shop had been replaced by a whipped dog. He still couldn’t hide the things I was trying to bury. So I wasn’t sorry to see him go.
I retrieved my day sack from where I’d hidden it, sparked up the Seat and drove towards the cemetery. Luca had told me that a couple of graves had already been selected for Anna and Nicholai, complete with all the nice shiny marble one could wish for. It was the city’s gift to them, and to me.
I stopped halfway down the cypress avenue, and looked at the slightly weird motif on the stark white panels each side of the entrance: a couple of crossed bones and the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
I hadn’t gone down to see their bodies in the hospital. I wasn’t going to visit their grave sites now. I had the sash, and that would do me.
My mantra had always been: Why worry about what you can’t change? If I said it often enough, I might start to believe it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
From the day he was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy’s Hospital in London, Andy McNab has led an extraordinary life.
As a teenage delinquent, Andy McNab kicked against society. As a young soldier, he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS, he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years, on five continents. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, ‘will remain in regimental history for ever’. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS.
Since then Andy McNab has become one of the world’s bestselling writers, drawing on his insider knowledge and experience. As well as three non-fiction bestsellers – including Bravo Two Zero, the bestselling British work of military history – he is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers. He has also written a number of books for children.
Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and the UK, works in the film industry advising Hollywood on everything from covert procedure to training civilian actors to act like soldiers, and he continues to be a spokesperson and fundraiser for both military and literacy charities.
www.andymcnab.co.uk
Also by Andy McNab
Novels featuring Nick Stone
REMOTE CONTROL
CRISIS FOUR
FIREWALL
LAST LIGHT
LIBERATION DAY
DARK WINTER
DEEP BLACK
AGGRESSOR
RECOIL
CROSSFIRE
BRUTE FORCE
EXIT WOUND
ZERO HOUR
DEAD CENTRE
SILENCER
FOR VALOUR
Featuring Tom Buckingham
RED NOTICE
FORTRESS
STATE OF EMERGENCY
Andy McNab with Kym Jordan
WAR TORN
BATTLE LINES
Quick Reads
THE GREY MAN
&
nbsp; LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER
TODAY EVERYTHING CHANGES
Non-fiction
BRAVO TWO ZERO
IMMEDIATE ACTION
SEVEN TROOP
SPOKEN FROM THE FRONT
THE GOOD PSYCHOPATH’S GUIDE TO SUCCESS (with Kevin Dutton)
SORTED! THE GOOD PSYCHOPATH’S GUIDE TO BOSSING YOUR LIFE (with Kevin Dutton)
For more information on Andy McNab and his books, see his website at www.andymcnab.co.uk
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.transworldbooks.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Andy McNab 2015
Andy McNab has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473508668
ISBNs 9780593073780 (cased)
9780593073797 (tpb)
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Andy McNab
Copyright