by Andy McNab
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, you 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 c
ars. 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 dumars 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.
Danny watched as his grandfather carefully dragged the pallet across the floor, making as little noise as possible. Fergus reached the window and got to his knees. He pulled at the metal frame and it opened a few centimetres before being halted by the mesh. But it was enough for him to see Danny smiling in at him.
Fergus looked stunned, and then furious. 'You . . . you bloody fool!' he hissed. 'Get out! Go. Now. Go!'
39
Danny was going nowhere – at least not as long as he could hang onto the drainage pipe. He reached down, pulled out his Leatherman and carefully slid it between one of the rectangles in the mesh. 'You're only as sharp as your knife,' he breathed.
Despite his fury, Fergus grabbed at the knife and pulled it through.
'Four guards,' whispered Danny. 'All in the room under this one. And four cars. Can you hot-wire?'
Fergus nodded.
'Elena and Eddie are with me.'
'Elena and . . . ? Danny, what the hell do you think—?'
'I couldn't do it on my own,' hissed Danny. 'I'm not perfect like you.' He was finding it hard to hold onto the pipe; his legs were shaking under the strain. 'Wait out until I give the signal, then try to get out of there and down to the cars.'
'What's the signal?'
'I don't know yet, and it may be quite a while. But you'll know when you hear it.'
He couldn't hold on any longer and began slithering down the pipe.
'Danny, just get away and—'
But he was gone. Fergus closed the window and carefully moved the pallet back to its original position. He hid the knife in his jeans and fixed his eyes on the door and the lock. He could see the tip of the key, held in the key well.
Five minutes earlier he'd been thinking about dying, preparing himself as well as he could. He'd been in many near-death situations. This time there had seemed no hope and too much time to think about it. Now there was hope. Faint, slight hope. But there were no experienced, highly trained SAS veterans out there fighting for him. Fergus's life was in the hands of his seventeen-year-old grandson.
Danny waited until his legs stopped trembling and then moved with Elena back to the fence, where the dumars were hanging. Eddie came bustling through the ferns towards them. 'What did you see? Is he there?'
'Upstairs,' nodded Danny. 'And four guards downstairs. But no sign of Fincham or the woman who was at Meacher's.'
'Four?' breathed Eddie. 'Look, get out now while you still can. At least you know your granddad's alive. We'll get back to London and—'
'I'm not going anywhere without Fergus,' hissed Danny. 'We have to create a diversion to give him the chance to get out.'
'We?'
'Oh, don't worry, Eddie, we'll do it,' snarled Elena. 'You clear off back to London and don't give us a thought. You just think about yourself. We'll probably get killed, like you say, but you'll be all right. You and your precious story. And that's all that matters, isn't it, not someone's life?'
The words came flooding out but eventually Elena fell silent.
Eddie stared at her. 'You finished?'
She nodded.
'Look,' said Eddie, 'it's no good you appealing to my better nature because I haven't got one.'
'Yeah, I'd noticed.'
'And anyway what could I do?'
'You could use your car.'
'To do what?'
Eddie and Danny were both staring at Elena now.
'Drive it down the track towards the compound. Sound the horn, flash the lights, play the radio, do anything to get the four of them out of the house. Once the gates are open, you turn the car round and get away as quick as you can. We'll do the rest.'
Eddie turned to Danny. 'Was this your idea?'
'No, it was not, it was mine,' snapped Elena. 'He's not the only one with a brain.'
'Will you do it?' said Danny. 'It's probably our only chance.'
'But it'll take hours for me to get back to the car.'
'We've got at least two hours till daylight, three maybe.'
'But . . . What if . . . ? But . . .' He was weakening.
'Do it, Eddie,' said Elena softly. 'Please?'
The big reporter shook his head and sighed. 'The minute I see them get to those gates, I'm off. Away. Out of it. Michael Schumacher won't have nothing on me.'
He pulled up the collar on his coat, turned away and began walking. After a few steps he stopped and looked back. 'Crazy,' he murmured. 'Crazy.' And he pulled his coat tightly around his bulky body and hurried off into the night.
There was nothing more Danny and Elena could do but wait. And hope. They crept over to the shelter of the Nissen hut and sat down on the concrete. The night was at its coldest and they huddled closely together.
