Boy soldier bs-1

by Andy McNab

  Elena laughed. 'When Danny wants to do something, he does it. Doesn't matter what anyone else says. Don't worry about us, vicar, we'll be all right.'

  The reporter turned in his seat, glaring angrily at Elena. 'You think this is all a laugh, don't you, like a game! It's not. You could get killed! Killed! Can't you get that into your head!'

  Elena looked away and stared out through a side window. 'I know it's no game,' she said quietly.

  They sat in silence until Danny returned to the car. 'Last one they had,' he said as he opened up the map and found the six-figure reference Eddie had written in his notebook.

  'There's nothing there,' said Elena, looking up from the map. 'It's just forest.' She pointed at two words printed in the target area. 'See that?'

  The two words read: DANGER AREA.

  'It's an army training area,' said Danny. 'They put that to warn the public off.'

  Eddie started up the car. 'Yeah? Well, it's working on me.'

  'You're sure you wrote down exactly what the woman said?'

  'I'm a reporter, that's what I do.' Eddie made one last attempt at warning them off the rescue attempt. 'Look, it's dark, it's late, and you've got no idea what you're up against. Come back to London with me. I can probably get this on the television news tonight and in the papers tomorrow. They won't do anything to Fergus then.'

  'We're wasting time, Eddie,' said Danny, refolding the map. 'Just get us as close as you can to the map reference.'

  Eddie crunched the gears as he shoved the Sierra into first gear and pulled away.

  They parked in a firebreak in the forest, just past the track leading into the army training area. Danny used his Maglite to read the map. 'This is it; we walk from here.' He grabbed the day sack and reached for the door handle. 'Thanks, Eddie. Write the whole story, and get the facts right.'

  'Wait,' said Eddie. He hadn't spoken since they'd driven away from the filling station, but he had been thinking. 'Look, I'll come with you, just to see what's there. Then if you still want to go through with this crazy plan, you're on your own. OK?'

  Danny simply nodded. They got out of the car, crossed the road and walked back to the MoD track. It was the closest manmade feature to the map reference so it made sense to think it might lead towards wherever Fergus was being held.

  'We'll make the ERV five metres into the forest and twenty metres up the road from here,' said Danny, pointing in the direction he meant.

  'The what?' asked Elena.

  'Emergency rendezvous. If anything goes wrong, go to the-'

  'Danny, I've told you,' said Eddie interrupting. 'I'm coming to find out what's there, that's all. If it all goes wrong you won't see my arse for dust, so there's no point in telling me about ERVs or ETAs or even ETs. I'm a coward, remember?'

  There were fresh tyre marks in the mud where the track met the road. But as they moved into the darkness along the left-hand side of the track, the ground got harder and they lost sight of the tyre marks and almost everything else.

  The black night engulfed them. Danny and Elena walked on either side of Eddie, clutching at the reporter as he stumbled with almost every step. 'Use your torch, Danny, I can't see a thing.'

  'Stand still for a while and wait for your night vision to kick in. You stay with him, Elena.'

  Before Eddie or Elena had the chance to stop him, Danny moved on. He stopped after twenty metres, then crouched down and listened. His own night vision was working now; he could make out individual trees on the other side of the track. As he tuned in to the area and heard the light breeze shifting the treetops, Eddie and Elena came hurrying up.

  'I'm not here just to look after him,' complained Elena without looking at Eddie. 'Don't go wandering off like that.'

  Beads of sweat were standing out on Eddie's forehead. He already looked ready to give up and turn back. But Danny wanted to hang onto the reporter now, realizing that if they did manage to rescue Fergus, Eddie was the one with a vehicle.

  'I need your help, Eddie,' he said. 'Count your paces and tell me when you reach twelve hundred.'

  'Twelve hundred? That'll take-'

  'You too, Elena,' said Danny. 'So we're certain it's right.'

  'But why?'

  'We need to know how far we're travelling. One hundred and twenty paces is about a hundred metres, so twelve hundred is around a kilometre.'

  'How do you know that?'

  'Army RGB,' said Danny as he moved on. 'At least I got something useful from it.'

  Eddie followed. 'One, two, three…'

  The first twelve hundred paces took an hour. They moved in bounds, just as Fergus had taught Danny. The second kilometre took even longer. When Eddie breathlessly blurted out, 'Twelve hundred,' Danny saw that he looked totally exhausted.

  'You're doing great, Eddie, we're nearly-'

  He stopped mid sentence as he spotted vehicle lights on the track behind them. They were closing. Quickly. 'Vehicle. Off the track, quick!'

  He pushed them both into the forest. Branches scratched at their faces and snagged on their clothes as the vehicle's headlights bounced off the trees and came closer. Danny fell into the leaf litter, pulling Eddie and Elena down with him.

  The vehicle passed their hiding place and the trees around them turned an eerie red as the driver hit the brakes and turned left onto a smaller track. Danny lifted his head and watched the small car bounce away and then disappear.

  'He's showing us the way. Must be going somewhere, Eddie. Less than a kilometre, I reckon.'

  'A kilometre!'

  'Oh, stop moaning!' said Elena as she stood up and brushed the leaf litter from her clothes. 'Just walk!'

  38

  Jimmy was at the wheel of the car. He'd been to an all-night Tesco to get more supplies. He hit the gear-stick pressel.

  'That's Jimmy approaching the house.'

  Brian was on stag, monitoring the surveillance devices protecting the compound.

  'Roger that, Jimmy, I have you now.'

  One of the screens in front of him showed a line drawing of the mud track leading to the house. Jimmy had driven over the first set of UGSs and set off the alarm. A second white light blinked on and off, followed by the third, as Jimmy got closer to the compound.

  He stopped the car just after the third set of UGSs and switched off his lights. Then he drove slowly into the clear area and along the concrete track. He took his time, waiting for Brian to come out and unlock the gates.

  Fran and Mick were also in the surveillance room. They'd moved on to sandwiches now that the supply of Pot Noodles was exhausted. They weren't particularly hungry just bored. Eating helped pass the time on a long, routine job like this.

  Marcie Deveraux was alone in the room opposite. She knew she had to stay awake, but rest was important. She turned off the light, lay down on the camp bed and clasped her hands together behind her head. As she stared up into the darkness, Deveraux heard the door to the surveillance room open and then footsteps going up the stairs.

  Fran had taken over on stag. Her first job was to check on Fergus. At the top of the stairs she unlocked the door, pushed it open and then smiled mockingly at the prisoner sprawled on the floor with his feet plas-ticuffed to the wooden pallet. 'Comfy?'

  Fergus stared back defiantly as Fran walked into the room, casually removed her Glock 9mm from its holster and pointed it at the spot directly between his eyes. 'I'm looking forward to finishing you. It's always a pleasure to get rid of another drug trafficker.'

  She touched her still bruised nose with the Glock's barrel and then checked that Fergus was securely cuffed to the pallet before going back to the door. 'We'll pick up the boy soon enough. Shame about him, but he'd probably turn out like you, anyway. It's in the blood, I reckon.' She grinned. 'You sure you've got nothing you want to tell the governor?'

  Fergus made eye contact with her. 'Fincham set me up. He's the one who should be sitting here. He's the real-'

  'Yeah, I was waiting for that one,' interrupted Fran. 'Now, y
ou got anything sensible you want to say, or what?'

  Fergus knew he was wasting his time. He looked away.

  'Suit yourself, it's your funeral, although you won't exactly get a funeral.' She stepped out of the room, closed the door and re-locked it, leaving the key in the lock so that there was no chance of it getting lost.

  Downstairs, Fran went outside and checked the padlock on the gate before walking a circuit of the fence line, looking for cuts. It was routine SOP at the start of a two-hour stag and she was soon back in the surveillance room, staring at the UGSs on the monitors.

  The kettle was coming to the boil and Mick was spooning instant coffee into mugs lined up on the worktop. 'You want one, Fran?'

  'Yeah,' she answered, turning away from the monitors. 'Oh, by the way, our friend upstairs reckons he's an innocent man and the governor's the one who should be in the frame.'

  'Yeah, course he should,' said Mick as he poured the steaming water into the mugs. 'And you're the Queen of Hearts.'

  Danny heard noises in the bushes ahead just as they completed another bound. He stopped, his eyes narrowing, trying to penetrate the darkness. Eddie was breathing too hard to hear a thing. He blundered into Danny. 'Sorry,' he said, far too loudly.

  The noise from the bushes increased, as if someone was running away, and this time Eddie heard. 'What's that?'

  'Ssshh,' breathed Elena, grabbing Eddie's arm.

  'Just a deer,' said Danny. 'We scared it.'

  Eddie wiped a hand across his sweating brow. 'Not half as much as it scared me.'

  Danny knelt down on the track, tuning in again to the area, and his knee rested directly on top of a circular UGS buried just a few centimetres under the mud and leaf litter. Fortunately for Danny, it was calibrated to take the weight of a vehicle, and inside the house Fran took a sip of her brew and stared at the blank monitor.

  Danny stood up and led the others on until they reached the edge of the open, treeless area. And then, through the tall ferns, they saw the start of the concrete road.

  Elena whispered to Danny, 'You were right.'

  'But there's not meant to be anything here but forest,' breathed Eddie, peering into the gloom.

  Danny turned to him. 'You staying or going?'

  'Staying. Just for a bit longer.'

  They crept onto the concrete road, keeping to the left-hand edge. Soon they could see the dark shape of the building ahead and the tall fence and gates. 'There,' whispered Danny. 'That's where they've got Fergus. We need to do a CTR.'

  'Baffling me with letters again,' moaned Eddie.

  They took a clockwise route around the fence line, approaching the white side of the building first. The solid steel fence was made up of rectangles, too small even for a foot or handhold.

  A dull light shone from the left-hand bottom window of the building and more light leaked from the window directly above. They moved on to green: there were no windows here. On black they saw light from the right-hand-side bottom window, and again, light from the room above. Passing the Nissen hut, they moved on to red and spotted the drainage ditch on their side of the fence.

  'Now what?' asked Eddie, sitting down on the mud. 'I can't see how you'll get in there.'

  Danny checked his watch. Finding the compound and doing the careful CTR had taken hours.

  Elena knew exactly what he was thinking. 'Probably only four hours or so till it gets light. We can't afford to be stuck out here then.'

  'Better get on with it,' said Danny as he started off towards black. Elena followed and Eddie dragged himself to his feet and trailed after them.

  Behind the shelter of the Nissen hut, Danny took the climbing dumars from his day sack and glanced at the fence. 'Not a mountain, but high enough.'

  Eddie looked up at the towering steel barrier. 'You'll never make it.'

  'I'll make it.'

  'We'll both make it,' said Elena firmly.

  'Oh, no,' said Danny, untangling the nylon straps. 'You haven't used these before.'

  'Oh, and you have, have you?'

  It was getting a bit too loud and heated. 'Sssshhh,' hissed Eddie. 'Will one of you just get over the bloody fence!'

  'I thought you weren't staying,' snapped Elena.

  'I'm not. I'll see you into the compound, that's all.'

  'Look, I'm no use to you out here,' said Elena to Danny. 'Get over and throw the straps back. If you can do it, I can.'

  There was no point in Danny arguing, and anyway, he knew Elena was right. There was little point in her staying outside the compound like a spectator. She'd come to help, not to watch.

  He made sure his day sack was tight against his back, went to the fence and hooked one of the blocks into the steel at about shoulder height. The nylon loop hung down from the block. Danny placed the second block a little higher on the fence, keeping the blocks about shoulder-width apart.

  Gripping the blocks with his hands, he placed his right foot in the lowest loop and, using both arm and leg muscles, pulled himself upwards, letting the loop take all his weight. He felt it creak and stretch and the sturdy fence buckled slightly and made a rattling sound. It wasn't loud, but in the still, quiet night, it sounded as though Danny was hitting a cymbal.

  But the loop held. Danny put his left foot into the other loop, transferred his weight to the left side and pulled himself up. He was moving upwards, but now came the difficult part. He had to take the right block out of the fence and move it higher so that he could continue climbing. His first attempt was hopeless. As the nail came free, Danny swung to the left and ended up suspended in mid air with his back to the fence.

  Elena rushed over, grabbed Danny's legs and turned him so that he was facing the fence again. He pushed the hooked nail in higher up the fence, transferred his weight, and took another upwards step.

  'Get it right, will you?' breathed Elena.

  She watched in silence as Danny climbed steadily and carefully up the fence. But the minutes were passing swiftly and each move was difficult. As he neared the top, his leg and arm muscles were yelling in protest as they worked overtime to get him to the other side. His clothes caught on the sharp steel stretched along the top of the fence. Carefully, he freed the material, and swung himself over. The descent of the fence was almost as hard as the upward climb but eventually Danny made it to the ground and freed the nails from the fence.

  He stepped backwards and threw the two dumars over, one after the other. Within seconds Elena had hooked them onto the fence and was starting to climb. She looked through the fencing towards Danny. 'Easy,' she whispered.

  It was almost time for Mick to take over on stag. He was dozing on his camp bed when Fran gently shook him by the shoulder. He opened his eyes.

  'Stag in five,' said Fran quietly. 'Kettle's on.'

  Mick nodded and yawned. 'I'll check on Watts while I'm waiting.' He stood up, stretched and headed for the stairs. When he returned, Fran had made the brew. Mick pulled on his jacket for the routine check outside. 'I'll be back for that in a minute,' he said, going towards the door.

  Danny and Eddie saw the light spill from the exterior door as it opened, and then watched a dark figure walk across the compound towards the main gate. Elena was inside the compound, about halfway down the fence. She couldn't see the gate but knew she was in trouble when she heard the rattling noise as Mick checked the padlock.

  Elena had no choice. She shook her feet free of the loops and let go of the blocks, there was no time to worry about leaving the dumars on the fence. She hit the concrete hard but didn't feel a thing; fear was pumping adrenaline around her body. Danny pulled her up and they ran into the Nissen hut as Eddie disappeared into the ferns.

  Mick started his circuit, checking the bottom of the fence by torchlight. Danny and Elena were huddled close together behind one of the cars. They couldn't see Mick approach the point in the fence where the loops dangled down against the steel. But Mick was looking forward to his coffee; he didn't look up at the top of the fence. He passed the duma
rs and continued on towards the Nissen hut.

  The footsteps came closer. Danny and Elena kept perfectly still, both unconsciously holding their breath. Mick stopped. He was no more than three metres away from them. The torchlight flicked over the corrugated iron of the hut and then bounced from one car to another, settling momentarily and then flicking on.

  The footsteps started again and the torchlight moved along the base of the fence and eventually faded. Danny and Elena heard the door to the house open and close and the compound was silent again.

  'Check the car doors,' whispered Danny as he stood up. 'We might need one of them.' Elena moved swiftly from one car to another. They were all locked.

  'Let's move,' said Danny.

  Keeping low, they crossed the back of the compound and crouched under the right-hand ground-floor window. Danny slowly lifted his head and through the mesh, saw a man with his back to him at the far end of the room.

  Two more men were asleep on camp beds and a woman was getting into a sleeping bag on another bed. It made sense. Four cars, four people.

  But the woman crawling into the sleeping bag was white; the woman Danny had seen at Meacher's was black. He'd been hoping to find an ally in the enemy camp but it looked as though Eddie was right: they were on their own.

  Danny looked up at the light coming from the window above him. 'He's got to be up there,' he whispered to Elena. 'And there's only one way up.'

  The exterior drainage pipe from the toilet in the room looked secure. Danny pulled on it to check, wiped his hands on the wall to dry them, and began to climb. After the dumars it was easy. Within seconds he was at the window. He gripped the metal sill sticking out from the steel mesh and jammed his feet between the pipe and the wall. Slowly raising his head above the sill, he peered into the room.

  Fergus heard the movement at the window. He sat up, thinking for a moment that it must be a bird. But the soft tapping against the mesh was slow and constant. It was no bird. He looked, and then he stared as he made out the flat of a hand gently banging against the steel.