by Andy McNab
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to. He was on his knees, spreadeagled against the wagon, his face pressed against the door. I gripped his weapon arm and shook it. The .38 clattered to the floor.
But that wasn’t the end of it. This boy wasn’t giving up. Spit and blood flew out of his mouth as he raged, ‘You surn of a fuckin’ bitch, thet’s all yer want t’do, come here an’ take . . . shit.’
I was worried about his wife; was Ruby on the phone to the police, or getting out the shotgun? I stepped back and drew my own pistol, kicking his left arm to get him right down on the floor. Then I delivered a couple of persuaders for him to get under the pickup. Now what? I ran.
I sprinted out of the garage, turned left past the front of the house and legged it across the grass, following the track I’d made on the way in. The rain was pelting down.
I heard a woman shout behind me, but I didn’t look back. There were no shots.
I vaulted the fence and made my way through the woods to Sarah. She was on her haunches, against a tree. I collapsed next to her, panting on my hands and knees. I looked up and we exchanged a glance. What could I say? I’d fucked up. You can be so close to civilization, yet when you’re wet, cold, hungry and don’t exactly know where you are, it can seem so far.
There was a gap that she filled. ‘What now?’
‘Let me think . . .’ I looked back at the house. There was no movement. Ruby was probably in the garage, dragging her husband out from under the pickup before heading back to the phone.
My mind was racing through all the options, but the decision was made for me. A cruiser ripped along the road from the opposite side of the house, a blue and white blur in the driving rain. No sirens, no lights, just a foot flat down on the gas pedal. If it was Mr and Mrs Redneck’s little boy responding to the call, he wasn’t going to be happy with the way I’d abused his father’s Southern hospitality.
I got up and started to move. They would be following up big time, tracking the sign I’d left in the grass. I ran back the way we had come, then hung a right towards the road. At that moment I heard the helicopter rattling through the sky. We got into tree-hugging again. The moment it had flown past, and not even bothering to look behind me to check for Sarah, I started motoring through the forest. She would just have to keep up.
Reaching the edge of the wood near the road, I dropped onto my hands and knees, watched and listened. The only sounds I could hear were my own laboured breathing and the rain hammering on the tarmac and leaves. Sarah flopped down beside me.
I crawled to the very edge of the tree line and looked out. The wet, potholed, single-carriageway road was deserted.
20
We both lay there in the mud, lifting our heads and checking for movement like a pair of meerkats. I couldn’t see anything, just solid walls of rain.
Finally I nodded to her. She acknowledged. I got up and sprinted across the road, but instead of going into the tree line, I cut left and started following the edge of the tarmac.
She shouted, ‘Nick, what are you doing? Come on, let’s get under cover!’
I turned and waved her towards me.
She hesitated a moment, then understood and ran to join me. I kept to the roadside for another thirty metres, checking backwards, forwards and upwards for movement. I chanced about ten metres more and knew I was tearing the arse out of it. I ducked to the right and moved into the tree line. Even if they followed up with dogs, it would take them a while to re-establish our trail, for the surface scent would be washed off the tarmac by the heavy rain, slowing the dogs down severely. It would then be up to the trackers to cast for sign in both directions and along both sides of the road, because for all they knew I might have doubled back. Only when, or if, they refound our trail could they get the dogs back on the scent.
For the next half-hour I picked my way through dense forest. The ground was undulating and littered with knolls; it was hard going, but excellent cover, the sort of terrain that a light aircraft might crash into and never be found. I was heading in this direction for no other reason than that I wanted to; sometimes there is no absolutely correct answer.
Every ten minutes or so the heli clattered across the sky, casting around for movement or visible sign. This time it got a bit too near. We stopped and hid, using the chance to catch our breath. Both of us were still soaked to the skin with rain and sweat. As the heli came in low over us, the trees swayed with the downwash and another sixty gallons of rain cascaded through the canopy. My throat was dry and rasping as my chest heaved, the only positive thing being that all this effort was keeping my body core nicely heated.
Still the helicopter didn’t move out of the area. He was there, somewhere; low and slow. I looked back the way we’d come and saw the ground sign we’d left. It would be easy enough even for the untrained eye to follow, but for anybody who knew what they were doing, possibly with dogs, it was a floodlit motorway.
Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t take them long to find where we’d crossed the road. From there it would be simple; we were travelling through wet forest, over stinking ground, in rain and fog – perfect terrain and conditions for keeping a scent glued in position. What was more, they would be following on fresh legs and able to call up reinforcements at will, and after a while they’d be able to predict our direction of travel so that others could intercept us. Then again, maybe they didn’t have dogs or trackers on the case yet; it wasn’t as if such things were on twenty-four-hour standby. Visual tracking is not the most popular skill for a person to take up, and exponents are in short supply; maybe it would take them hours to mobilize somebody, and maybe they lived on the other side of the state. Maybe . . . maybe. Whatever, every man, but hopefully not his dog, would be out looking.
I had to admit to myself that I had no idea where we were going, and we were gradually exhausting ourselves. A decision had to be made: Did we hide up and wait until dark to move out of the area, preferably by vehicle? Or did we take our chances now?
The heli’s blades chopped the air above us. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere. This was strange; it wouldn’t be able to see a thing under the canopy, and in a backwoods area like this it was unlikely to be fitted with thermal-imaging equipment. It was a full ten minutes before I heard a change in engine pitch, and the aircraft rattled off into the distance. I moved from under the tree and continued running. Our pace was slowing perceptibly. I was fucked. My footprints were getting closer and closer together as my strides shortened: to a visual tracker or trained dog it would be the encouraging sign of a slower-moving quarry. I glanced behind me. Sarah looked like death on legs.
I tried to think of positives. If you run at 10 mph for one hour in an unknown direction, you could be anywhere in a circle of just over 300 square miles. An hour later that will have become an area of 1,256 square miles. In The Lone Ranger, Tonto used to stop and say, ‘Five wagons, two hours ago. That way, kemo sabe.’ Luckily, real life isn’t that easy – and Tonto lives in Arizona.
I decided to lie up and wait until last light. With no compass or stars to guide us, I could be going round in circles for weeks. During darkness, the plan would be to move to a known quantity – the road – and parallel it until I could get my hands on a vehicle.
I carried on for another ten minutes or so, with Sarah now up with me. About sixty or seventy metres away to my half right, there was something which looked as if it could work: a fallen tree on higher ground, its branches still intact but decaying. It had fallen down a sharp bank. It would give us ideal cover from view from the air as well as the ground and, just as important, it would give us cover from the elements. If the police didn’t get hold of us, I didn’t want the weather to finish us off. It wouldn’t be long before exhaustion and cold would take their toll.
‘What are we doing now?’ Sarah asked. ‘Why have you stopped?’
I didn’t bother replying; I was looking back at the route we’d taken. Then I turned round again and looked forward at the tree, off to
my half right. The ground ahead was the same as behind, rises, with lots of dead ground beyond.
I turned half left and started kicking my feet, leaving obvious sign. I wanted them to see my direction change away from the fallen tree. Sarah followed on behind, puffing and panting, struggling to keep the size-eleven trainers on her size-five feet.
Over a rise, and in the dead ground beyond, was a stream a couple of metres wide. I headed down and waded straight into the freezing water. I checked behind me and couldn’t see the tree.
Sarah stood her ground on the bank. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Get in.’
The water came over my knees. I turned left and moved downstream, stopping every dozen or so paces and looking back to make sure I couldn’t see the tree. I had trudged about fifty metres, with Sarah splashing along behind me, before I decided this was far enough. I didn’t know why, it just felt right. I got out on the far side of the stream and stood still. I could hear Sarah’s trainers squelching as she came up beside me, visibly thankful for the rest.
I gave myself a minute to collect my thoughts, looking at her, soaked and bedraggled, fir needles splattered on her face, twigs in her hair. Not exactly how she’d choose to appear at one of her embassy parties, but she was doing well; she’d obviously kept herself in shape.
‘Ready?’
She nodded and took a deep breath to prepare.
We moved up and down for another 300 metres or so, in a direct line away from the stream. Sarah was starting to feel the strain, and I could only move at her speed. I decided that this was far enough; it was time for one last bit of deception. I stopped and moved over to an outcrop of rock. Sarah came up level with me, and we both had our hands on our knees, panting for breath as if we’d just finished a 200-metre sprint.
‘Sarah, take off your knickers.’
She looked at me blankly. She’d heard me say that before, but not in a situation like this. ‘What?’
‘Your knickers, I need them.’ I’d already taken off my jacket and was pulling off my shirt. I was after the T-shirt underneath. Her expression told me that she wasn’t sure about this. ‘Sarah, trust me. They must have dogs.’ She didn’t bother to ask, just moaned to herself about getting undressed. In any other situation it would have been quite nice to watch her drop her jeans and peel off her underwear, but that was the story of my life: wrong time, wrong place.
I got my shirt back on and shivered as it touched my skin. Sarah was busy doing up her jeans. I picked up her knickers and placed them with my T-shirt between the rocks and a bush. If we were being tracked visually or by dogs they would get to this point. The mutt doesn’t know what’s really happening and what exactly he’s looking for; to him it’s just a game. A dog can confuse an item of clothing with the quarry and assume victory with its find. Then the handler has to get the dog sparked up again before it will continue.
Dogs pick up scent in two different ways: from the air, and from contact with the ground, trees, plants and buildings. Airborne scents don’t last long; they are quite quickly blown away by the wind. Ground scent, however, can be obvious to a dog for anything up to forty-eight hours, and can be generated not only by leaving your smell on things you touch, but by your movement itself. If you’re walking on grass, or pushing through vegetation, you’ll crush leaves and stems with every step.
Even on bare ground your footprints will release air and tiny quantities of moisture which have been trapped in the earth, and they smell quite different from the air above ground. From your ‘scent footprints’, a dog can even tell which direction you are moving in, because as you push off each step with your toes, the front of the scent print is more obvious than the heel, and it doesn’t take long for a well-trained dog to work out what that means.
Just as each person’s footprints look slightly different to the human eye, so does the mixture of scents in a smell footprint to a dog. If he’s really switched on, he might even be able to track one individual where there are a number of people travelling together.
A dog could out-hear, out-smell and out-run me. But I could out-think him. ‘The strongest odour is from the sweat glands,’ I said to Sarah. ‘But at the moment I think your underwear will smell more than your T-shirt.’ I grinned. ‘Nothing personal.’
She thought about it and nodded; she had to agree on that one.
‘OK, follow me. Step by step. Don’t touch anything, not even to lean on.’ I started to pick my way over the outcrop, sticking to the highest rocks to keep out of any areas where scent could be trapped. Hopefully, they would be washed clean by the rain.
We moved into dead ground, carefully picking our way to prevent leaving sign. I started to move back down to the river. I got seventy-five metres short of the water and moved left until I saw the fallen tree.
From nowhere, the heli reappeared.
We hurtled under the trees, hugging them as if they were long-lost relations. I heard the groan of the rotors again, moving deliberately over the top of the canopy. It got so close I could feel the downwash. I suddenly made sense of what it was doing – it was following the line of the stream, maybe patrolling any exposed waterways because that was all they could see down here. It moved off and so did we.
The fallen tree looked quite promising. There were enough branches to hide under, and we could even get under the trunk where it lay clear of the ground. It was going to be a squeeze, but we’d be needing to huddle together anyway to share body heat.
Sarah was down on her knees trying to catch her breath. She searched my face as I motioned her in. ‘Why aren’t we running?’
‘I’ll explain later, just get under cover.’
She squeezed in and I followed. The underside of the trunk was just as wet and cold as the open air, but we were hidden and had a chance to rest. I wasn’t too sure any more if this was a good decision, but it was too late to worry now.
I made sure I could see the first turning point before the stream by scraping away the mud between the trunk and the ground. I’d used the same tactic time and again in the jungle, where it was standard procedure to ‘loop the track’ and put in an instant ambush on your own trail. If we were being followed, they would pass no more than sixty or seventy metres away and move half left, away from us and into the dead ground. There they’d find the stream, and start trying to cast over the other side to pick up our scent or ground sign again. That would give us vital time in which to act; if I saw dogs while lying up, I’d just have to make a run for it.
The heli passed overhead yet again, this time at speed, but we were well concealed. It could stay there all day if it wanted to, it wouldn’t make any difference. Sarah was looking at me, waiting for an explanation.
‘We wait until last light and go back towards the road.’ I pointed uphill. ‘That way.’
She wasn’t enjoying this outing, but she cuddled into me. I was wedged against the trunk, looking out; she was behind me, her body spooned against mine with her arms around my chest. I could feel her warmth. I tried hard not to think about how much I liked her depending on me. Continuing to look out, I tilted my head towards her. ‘Concealment is our best weapon. It’s going to be cold, and you’ll think you’re about to die, but you won’t – as long as we keep close and keep each other warm. Do you understand that?’
I felt her nodding, then she squeezed herself a little more tightly against me. Even in these circumstances, I had to admit it felt good.
There were three situations I’d hated all of my life: being wet, cold or hungry. Four, if you included having to shit in the field. All our lives, even as children, those are the three things that most of us try to avoid, but here I was, doing it again, and I couldn’t help feeling that, at thirty-eight, I should be seriously concentrating on getting a life. The one I had seemed to be going nowhere fast.
As the minutes ticked by my body started to cool, even with Sarah snuggling in behind me, and the ground itself seemed to become colder and soggier. I could feel her body warmth
at the points where she was making contact with me, but the rest of me was freezing. Every time she fidgeted to get comfortable, I could feel the cold attack the newly exposed area.
She fidgeted again and muttered, ‘Sorry, cramp,’ as she tried to stretch out her leg and tip up her feet in an effort to counter it.
I kept stag, listening to the stream, the wind in the treetops, the rain dropping onto the leaves and debris on the forest floor. There was a murky, calf-high mist permeating the woods which reminded me of stage smoke. That could work either for us or against us: it would give us some visual cover if we were forced to move, but it was also good for the dogs.
As time passed without any hint of a follow-up, I started to feel better about our situation. I looked at my watch: seven forty-six. Only another twelve hours or so until last light. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself? At least the Baby-G surfer was keeping cheerful.
Sarah had settled down and wanted to talk. ‘Nick?’
‘Not now.’ I needed time to think. I wanted to take a long hard look at what she’d told me, and to think about all that had happened. Was she bluffing about the Netanyahu plot? How did they plan to kill him? How had she been planning to stop them?
My head was full of questions, but no answers. Now wasn’t the time to ask. Tactically, noise had to be kept to a minimum, and besides, I needed to keep my head clear for the task in hand. I had to get out of here alive, preferably with Sarah still alive, too, for there was still another job to do.
21
An hour later Sarah and I were chilled to the bone and shivering violently. I tried to combat the cold by tensing up all my muscles and then releasing them; that worked for a while, but I was soon shaking again. I didn’t have a clue how Sarah was coping, and I didn’t care now; my head was in hyper mode trying to work out my options. Was she telling the truth? Should I call London if I got out of this? Should I get help from within the US? From Josh, maybe? No, he wouldn’t be back from the UK yet.
