Boy Soldier

by Andy McNab

  SAS TRAITOR MASTERMINDS

  MASS PRISON BREAKOUT

  But this time it wasn't the headline that drew Danny's attention, it was the by-line underneath:

  By our correspondent Eddie Moyes

  Danny smiled. 'He doesn't want to help me, he wants to find Fergus for himself. Well, nice try, Eddie Moyes, but you're not getting to him through me. No way.'

  A soft ping on the computer informed Danny that Elena was back on MSN.

  A star says: (5:06:01 pm)

  this could take 4ever and seriously damage my fundz

  Danny says: (5:06:19 pm)

  wots happening

  A star says: (5:06:29 pm)

  on site bt need pin no, 4 figures. dyu no his bthday, might b start or end of it. i dunno, im just guessing now

  Elena was right, it could take for ever. The chance of randomly hitting the right combination was about as likely as winning the lottery. But then Danny had an idea. He took out the old photograph and turned it over.

  Danny says: (5:07:12 pm)

  try 8654

  A star says: (5:07:21 pm)

  y

  Danny says: (5:07:29 pm)

  just try

  Elena went back to the site and punched in the four numbers. The web page changed immediately and told her that it was locating a number. In less than a minute a map came onto the screen with a circle around an area in Essex. Elena could zoom in on the map and in seconds she was writing down the details. She went back to Danny.

  A star says: (5:08:08 pm)

  GOT IT

  They logged off quickly. Danny wanted to get back to Foxcroft to share the information and decide what to do next.

  He was feeling better as he left the Internet café. He'd sussed out Eddie Moyes and there was no sign of the TDM. Maybe no one was following him at all. Maybe it was just his imagination. He turned to the right and walked towards the bus stop.

  'Stand by, stand by. That's Bravo One foxtrot, he's gone right from Internet café. Fran's foxtrot.'

  11

  'I don't understand. He's in the same place as before but it's in the middle of nowhere. It's just a road. No buildings. Nothing.'

  Danny and Elena had skipped breakfast and had logged on to the phone search company again. It clearly showed that Fergus – and Danny was convinced that it was Fergus – was in the same spot as on the previous day with his phone switched on. But the onscreen map showed no houses or larger factory buildings, not even a roadside filling station. Just road.

  Elena was sitting at her laptop, frowning at the screen. 'Maybe he parks his car in the same place every day and waits for his calls. But why?'

  The question went unanswered. Danny leaned against the door frame in the open doorway of Elena's room. They were bending the Foxcroft rules again. He wasn't supposed to be in the room. And he wasn't, not actually in it.

  Elena turned from the computer. 'So what next?'

  Danny had already made up his mind. 'I'm going there. Today. I can get a train from Liverpool Street, and then a bus, and then walk or hitch if I have to.'

  'To a bit of road? It might be a total waste of time.'

  'I'm going, Elena, and I'll find him.'

  'I'll come with you.'

  Danny shook his head. 'No way. But I do need your help.'

  Elena logged off from the website, shut down her computer and they went down to the quiet room. It wasn't very quiet. Lucy, the Jamaican woman who helped Jane with the cleaning, was doing her best Kylie Minogue impression as she danced round with the hoover.

  She spotted them in the doorway and broke off from singing just long enough to shout, 'Five minutes, darlings, that's all I need. Then it's all yours.'

  Without waiting for an answer, Lucy went back to her version of 'Can't Get You Out of My Head'. When Lucy liked a song, she liked it, it didn't matter how old it was, and the Kylie classic was an all-time favourite. Danny and Elena didn't hang around for the chorus – it wasn't easy listening. They went out into the garden and sat side by side on a bench.

  Danny had made his plans. 'You stay here, check the site again during the day and let me know if he takes any more calls.'

  'But what about that reporter bloke? You're meant to be meeting him.'

  Danny smiled. 'That's what he thinks. But Mr Eddie Moyes is in for a long wait.'

  Mr Eddie Moyes was used to waiting. He'd spent countless hours hanging around, drinking endless cups of coffee while he waited for the little titbits of information that sometimes led to a major exclusive. They'd been a lot harder to come by in the last few years.

  He'd been made redundant. Eddie Moyes, the man who'd broken more exclusives than the last three governments had broken promises. He'd been The Man. Top Dog. Numero Uno. He'd worked for all the red-tops in his time and was known as one of Fleet Street's finest.

  Until the last job. All right, he'd turned forty-five. All right, he liked a drink. But that was all part of the profession, and most of his best bits of information had been skilfully extracted over a friendly pint or three. And a few beers never affected the quality of his work.

  His last news editor hadn't seen it that way. He was a whiz kid, one of the new breed who'd taken the cushy university route instead of doing their time on a local rag. He didn't like Eddie from the off and quickly started sending him on stories more suited to an office junior.

  They clashed more than once, and when the management announced that redundancies were needed, the whiz kid struck. Eddie had been one of the last in, so he was one of the first out. They could have made him a special case, but they didn't. His record and reputation counted for nothing.

  Since then he'd scraped a living as a freelance. But now that he had the chance to get back where he belonged, he was determined to take it. Fergus Watts had cemented his reputation once before and he could do it again. He just had to find him.

  Eddie arrived very early at the café down the road from Foxcroft. He got himself a black coffee, ordered a bacon sandwich and found a seat at a vacant table by the window. He could see Foxcroft from where he was sitting.

  He pulled out rolled-up copies of the Sun, Star and Mirror from his jacket pocket and, with one eye on Foxcroft, speed-read the news pages. Eddie was feeling good. Soon they would all be begging for his services.

  His bacon sandwich arrived and Eddie lifted the top slice of soggy white bread and splashed on huge dollops of thick brown sauce. He replaced the bread and hungrily bit into the greasy sandwich. It was delicious, just the way he liked it. A thin stream of brown sauce ran down onto his podgy chin.

  Forty minutes and a second coffee later, Eddie was still waiting. He wasn't surprised and it didn't matter. It was just one of those setbacks all reporters have to cope with. He knew he'd been a bit too eager when he met Danny Watts the previous day and had sensed him backing off. That was no problem. He'd found out where Danny lived.

  The bacon for another sandwich was already sizzling in the frying pan. Eddie kept his eyes fixed on Foxcroft. A couple of kids had left the building during the past forty minutes, neither of them Danny.

  'Bacon sandwich!' called the woman behind the counter.

  As Eddie stood up he saw Danny walk out of Foxcroft and turn up the street in the opposite direction.

  'Make that to go, will you, love?' said Eddie, slapping a two-pound coin onto the countertop. 'Quick as you can.'

  12

  It was happening again. Danny was convinced he was being followed on the way to Liverpool Street Station. There was no sign of the TDM motorbike; it was more of a gut feeling. He was being watched.

  On the street, on the bus, everyone seemed to be looking towards him and then turning away as he returned their stare. He got off the bus before it reached the station and walked. A man in a brown bomber jacket was following him, Danny was certain. But when he stopped and looked back, the man went into a shop.

  Danny thought about running, but decided it would only draw more attention. So he walked faster, went stra
ight past the entrance to the station and kept going. Then he doubled back on himself through side streets and entered the station through the bus pull-in entrance. He went quickly to the ticket office, got a return ticket and went to the platform where the train was waiting.

  Late morning was one of the quieter times at Liverpool Street and Danny had the section of the carriage he chose to himself. Within a few minutes the train was pulling away and quickly gaining speed as it moved through east London.

  The carriage was grimy and drab, with ripped seats and WEST HAM ARE CRAP – TOTTENHAM RULE gouged into the glass of one of the windows. The train didn't stop as it went through Stratford and Ilford and past the greyhound track at Romford and then out into the commuter land of Essex. First stop was Brentwood. A few people got off and even fewer got on, and Danny was relieved when no one chose the same compartment as him.

  The train stopped at every station after that. Shenfield, Billericay, Wickford, and then his stop, Rayleigh. Judging from the website maps, it was the closest to where he wanted to be, but not quite close enough.

  Danny jumped from the compartment and ran towards the exit as soon as the train came to a standstill. He didn't look back to see who was following but rushed past the ticket collector and out into the street. He expected to be in the town centre. He wasn't. A long, uphill climb past semi-detached houses eventually brought him to the shops and a one-way traffic system.

  He went into a shop and bought a road map for the whole of the area, and a shop assistant told him he had to go back down the hill to pick up the bus he needed. On the way he called Elena.

  'Did he make any calls?'

  'No, none made or received. Are you all right?'

  'Yeah, but I'm being followed again.'

  'Have you seen someone then?'

  'Well no, but . . . it's just a feeling.'

  Danny could hear the irritation in Elena's voice as she answered. 'Danny, you are really winding me up, and making me nervous. I sit here worrying and waiting for you to call and then all you can say is you think you're being followed. You're not. You're imagining it. Just call when you've got something useful to tell me!'

  She hung up. She'd never done that to Danny before. He didn't like it.

  The bus carried Danny out of town, past a housing estate and then into a less built-up area. He got off near a large roundabout which connected with the trunk road he'd seen on the website map.

  From there it was a question of walking or hitching. He decided to hitch. It was another first: hitching a lift isn't an option in south-east London.

  Cars and lorries roared by; the road throbbed with traffic, and then a battered pick-up truck loaded with building material pulled in ahead of him. He ran to the truck and the passenger door creaked open on rusty hinges. The driver was leaning over, his hand still on the door, and Danny spotted the letters H A T E tattooed on the knuckles.

  The driver smiled when he saw Danny's look. 'Don't worry, mate, the other one's more friendly.'

  He stuck out his right fist. It read L O V E. The driver shrugged. 'Seemed like a good idea at the time. Where you going?'

  'I don't know, somewhere down this road.'

  It didn't seem an adequate answer, and it wasn't. 'You taking the piss?'

  'No. No, honest. I'm not sure where I'm going till I get there.'

  The truck driver laughed. 'Sounds like the story of my life, mate. You'd better jump in. I'm Colin.'

  They drove for nearly ten minutes while Danny gazed out at the flat, open landscape and listened to Colin's story of how his girlfriend, Cheryl, had almost dumped him when he first revealed L O V E and H A T E.

  'She's got used to them now, but it was a nightmare for a while. Wouldn't even talk to me, and as for her mother—'

  'Stop!' yelled Danny.

  Colin stood on the clutch and brake pedals. The brakes screamed in protest and the truck skidded into the grass verge in a cloud of blue smoke. The smell of burning rubber leaked into the cab and Colin turned to Danny with his eyes blazing. 'What the hell are you playing at? You could have killed us.'

  'I'm sorry, I've got to get out. That's it – that place back there.'

  They'd driven past a lay-by on the opposite side of the road. At the back of the lay-by stood a roadside café with a mobile number painted on the side and a Union Jack flying above it. Parked alongside was an old blue Fiesta.

  Danny opened the door and jumped out. 'I'm sorry about . . . Thanks.' He pushed the door shut and watched as Colin shoved the truck back into gear and drove away. Then he took out his phone and punched in a text to Elena:

  IVE FOUND HIM.

  He switched off the phone. He didn't want to be disturbed now, not even by Elena.

  13

  Frankie didn't make many phone calls. There was no need. He called the cash-and-carry one morning each week to place his regular order of bacon, burgers and whatever else was running low. His pay-as-you-go mobile was switched on during the day for phone-in orders but was always turned off before he left for home.

  He was on the line to the cash-and-carry again, checking that the order was ready for collection, when he heard the footsteps approaching. No vehicle had pulled in and Frankie didn't get pedestrian customers. He hung up, put down the phone and let his hand rest on the Alabama lie detector he kept under the counter.

  This was the moment Frankie had feared ever since arriving back in England. He hadn't expected it to happen this way, but then he'd been trained to expect the unexpected. He didn't panic. Frankie never panicked.

  The footsteps got closer and louder and then stopped completely, just out of Frankie's line of vision. He waited, his fingers tightening on the baton, and then his unexpected, unwanted visitor moved towards him again.

  It was Danny – he recognized him instantly. But there was no sense of relief; it simply meant they were both in terrible danger.

  Danny's moment of recognition was just as instantaneous. His grandfather looked older, but the face that stared back at him was the face he'd seen so many times over the past few days in the old photograph. And the eyes were just the same as the eyes that stared back at Danny from the mirror each morning.

  'Thought I'd never find you, didn't you?' he snarled. 'Thought you could run away from me, didn't you, Fergus Watts?'

  Fergus had to try to bluff it out. He smiled. 'I'm sorry, son, I think you're mistaking me for someone else. The name's Frankie, like it says on the van. Frank Wilson. Do you want a cuppa tea or something?'

  But Danny was too pumped up and certain to be sidetracked. 'I don't care what you're calling yourself now, but you're Fergus Watts. My granddad. I wish you weren't, but you are.'

  It was pointless trying to continue with the subterfuge. Frank Wilson the smiling, friendly roadside tea-bar owner instantly disappeared and Fergus Watts, highly trained and skilled SAS veteran, took over.

  The shutter slammed down and Danny heard the click of a heavy padlock. The side door opened and Fergus emerged carrying his jacket and a bunch of keys.

  'Get in the car,' he ordered as he locked the van door and fixed another padlock.

  Danny pulled his mobile phone from his jacket. 'Piss off! I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm calling the—'

  He got no further. Fergus grabbed him by his jacket collar, snatched the phone away and shoved it into a pocket. As Danny struggled, Fergus dragged him to the blue Fiesta, pulled open the door and threw him inside. 'Stay there!' he yelled and slammed the door.