Zero Option

by Chris Ryan

  Instantly I hit my pressel and called, 'Green One.

  Three armed X-rays on helicopter pick-up point.

  tl.equest immediate backup.'

  As I spoke, Tony and Farrell suddenly went down.

  They didn't lust fall over, they were hammered to the ground, and one of them let out an almighty roar. Jesus!

  Had Tony been shot? I yelled out, but it was not enough to distract the leading PIRA guy, who bore down on the struggling heap, obviously intent on finishing off the man he'd wounded.

  There wasn't time to get the cumbersome Haskins loaded and aligned. As an instant deterrent I whipped out my Sig and began spraying rounds at the leader. But the action was taking place more than a hundred yards off, and at that distance the shots were all over the place.

  In any case I had to keep high, for fear of hitting one of my own men. The leader ducked but continued towards the two on the deck, using them as cover.

  Whinger was firing now, but the guy kept advancing.

  By the time my magazine ran out he was within a few feet of the fallen couple. He stopped and deliberately extended his right arm, the pistol canted downwards at point-blank range.

  By then I'd thrown myself down on the turf outside the wood and got a fresh round into the breech of the Haskins. Feverishly I flicked the bipod into position.

  The range was barely a hundred metres. Aim low, aim low! I told myself. But before I could bring the sight to bear I heard two shots from the PIRA man's pistol crack out, and with a surge of dismay I thought I'd lost my closest, staunchest friend.

  The PIRA gunman was still rooted a couple of yards from the fallen pair. Holding my breath, I brought the cross-hairs of the sight on to his torso and, without waiting another instant, fired. I didn't even notice the recoil.

  But -Jesus! I-'d missed. Then instantly I remembered: I'd fiddled the sight to make certain Farrell couldn't hit the Prime Minister.

  Amazingly, the PIKA guy was standing on the same spot, now looking my way. In a second I had another round up the spout and aimed one body's width to his left. This time the five-oh bullet blew the man away.

  The impact lifted him backwards off his feet and threw his body on to the ground as if it were made of rags and cardboard.

  His mates checked and looked around for a moment, uncertain where the shots had come from. Then the threat of that fearsome firepower evidently became too much for them, and they turned tail and began running back across the field. I loaded a third round, swivelled to my left and touched offanother shot at the higher of the two. A burst of chalk and flint chips exploded from the ground above his.right shoulder. A second later, before I could load again, he'd vanished into dead ground over a ridge.

  The Jet-Ranger had been in a hover - the pilot evidently not fancying what was going on below him and when he saw the contact erupt he had started to climb. By the time I'd fired my last shot he'd banked hard and was pulling off to a safe distance. I was getting so carried away that I almost loaded another round and let drive at him too. I was sure the Haskins was capable of bringing the chopper down. But within seconds another helicopter was on the scene - a Puma, drab military olive in colour, which swept over the wood from our left, swung round to the far side of the hilly field, hovering just beyond the skyline, and disgorged a shower of black-clad guys who fast-roped down out of our sight. The ensuing crackle of small-arms fire told me they'd caught the two fleeing PIKA operatives in the open. Moments later a voice came on the net saying, 'Black Three. Two X-rays dead in vicinity of pick-up point. Area secure.'

  By now I'd loaded a full magazine into my pistol. I left the Haskins on the edge of the wood and sprinted forward to the tangle of bodies in the middle of the field. Both were lying face down. Expecting the worst, I pulled Tony over first. He gave a groan. He was very much alive.

  It was Farrell who'd got a double-tap through the temple. As I rolled him on to his back I saw that the whole left-hand side of his skull had been opened up.

  The mess of blood and brains took me straight back to the corridor in Libya.

  Farrell - dead! I could hardly take it in.

  Tony was pale and in severe pain. It was he who'd gone down first, with a bullet through the left upper arm. Once both of them were on the deck, Farrell, struggling to break free of his shackle, had yanked the wounded limb all over the place. There was a lot of blood sprayed about the grass. My first action was to get a tourniquet on to Tony's arm above the wound.

  Then I called over the radio for urgent casevac.

  'Green One. We have two more dead X-rays on the same field, with me. No live X-rays seen. One of our guys is wounded. Get that Puma here soonest. We're only about four hundred metres east of where the QR.F landed.'

  'Let's have these fucking cuffs off you,' I said to Tony. 'Where's the key?'

  Without speaking he patted the breast pocket of his smock with his right hand. I felt inside, brought the key out, unlocked the cuffs and gently took them off his wrist. I knew I shouldn't move Farrell's body before the scene of crimes officer arrived to make his assessment, but I couldn't help straightening out the cuffed arm.

  'Better,' Tony muttered, with an attempt at a smile.

  'What happened? Did the guy try to top you and hit Farrell by mistake?'

  'No way. He went straight for Farrell like a lunatic.

  Put the muzzle of the pistol right on him.'

  'What a bunch ofarseholes!' I said. 'Only death can stop them feuding. OK, Tony. Hang on. That chopper will be here any second. Stay with him, Whinger.'

  I stood up unsteadily and moved a couple of steps to look at the other dead terrorist. Immediately I recognised the short, grizzled grey hair. 'Christ! It's that bugger from the railway yard. Marty Malone. Old Foxy'l] be chuffed to bollocks. This was the one he wanted most.'

  The man was wearing a DPM smock. The huge round had gone straight through his right arm and on through his torso, and his pistol had fallen to the ground. Instinctively I bent to pick it up, but then thought, No, the SOCO will want it left where it fell.

  Looking at the far side of the body I saw that the exit wound was as big as a saucer. The left back ribs gaped open, and blood, scraps of lung and pieces of bone had been sprayed ten metres on to the grass beyond.

  In my earpiece Yorky was saying, 'Zero Charlie for Green One. Geordie, the med team's on its way to you.

  Who's hurt?'

  'It's Tony. Bullet through the upper arm. I've contained the bleeding. He could be worse.'

  'OK. The guys will be with you in seconds. What's happened to Farrell? Is he still with you?'

  'Affirmative. But he's dead.'

  I looked down at Tony and said, 'Hear that? The chopper's on its way.'

  His eyes were shut, but he nodded.

  I knelt beside him, feeling stunned now that the situation was over. When I turned my head sideways I realised that the sun was shining on my cheek. The warmth seemed to bring me back to reality.

  'Yorky,' I called. 'Is the Prime Minister OK?'

  'The Prime Minister's in roaring form. He's ordered champagne for breakfast, and he's invited you to join him.'

  'Don't be stupid.'

  'He has. I mean it.'

  'Christ, I can't. I've got to see Tim.'

  'I know. We've said as much, and he understands.

  I'm sure he'll ask you again.'

  'He put on a bloody good act, anyway.'

  'Come on, lad!' Yorky sounded delighted. 'You didn't think that was him, did you?'

  'Who was it, then?', 'Scrubber Jenkins, wearing a poncy wig and two flak

  jackets, one on top of the other. He was shitting himself too. '

  'Why?'

  'You might have hit him by mistake.'

  'It wasn't me on the rifle, Yorky. It was Farrell.'

  'Farrell! Jesus! How the heck did that come about?'

  'I told him he had to do the shoot or I'd top him.'

  'God almighty! Yer daft bat! He might have killed the PM.'
r />   'Not a chance. I twisted the sight off twenty clicks to the right during the night.'

  'Jesus, Geordie… I didn't hear that. Never mention it again or you'll be up to your neck in shit.' And with that Yorky went off the air.

  The seconds ticked slowly past. My mind was full of puzzles, and after another minute I called in again.

  'It was another PIRA guy who topped Farrell,' I said.

  'What the hell were they up to?'

  'Drug money, as we thought,' Yorky replied. 'I heard Fraser talking about a bank account the Firm discovered in the Cayman Islands. Farrell had eight million dollars in it.'

  'Eight million!'

  'Yeah. He'd been creaming off coke deals for years.

  If he'd escaped today he'd have done a runner.'

  'Where to?'

  'Three guesses.'

  'Colombia?'

  'You got it. He was planning to cut out and make a fresh start there.'

  'So the PIRA never really wanted him back?'

  'Only to top him.'

  'In that case, I've been a pawn to their game all the way through.'

  'More or less.'

  'Fucking hell! The devious, twisting bastards.'

  'Never mind, Geordie. If you're talking chess, it's checkmate to you. You've cleared the bloody board.

  King, quen, bishops - the lot.'

  SIXTEEN

  After a hit like that, all the lads are supposed to head straight back to camp. There, they sit down and calm down, and with a solicitor each one goes through every event that's occurred, every move made, every shot fired. The point of this routine is to prevent anybody talking to the police while they're still fired up with adrenalin and might say something out of place. As soon as the police get a chance they quiz you like there's been a murder, and you need to be careful.

  So usually the first evening is spent having a monster piss-up, and everyone gets mongolised; and then, next morning, there is a proper debrief.

  But in my case all that went out of the window.

  Because of the special circumstances an exception was made, and I was given permission to see my family straight away.

  'Take the chopper,' Yorky told me. 'Go with the casualty. They're taking him straight to HendonHospital, and that's where the hostages are anyway.'

  'What's happened to them?' I was so hyped up that I immediately became suspicious. 'Did they get injured in the recovery?'

  'No, no. tkelax. It's just that Tracy's exhausted. She's had more than enough for the time being.'

  'OK, Yorky. Thanks. Have you called Doughnut and Stew back in?'

  'Done that. They're on their way.'

  'Great. I'll leave Whinger here on the ground to deal with the SOCO.'

  'Fair enough. One more thing. You can't walk into the hospital in your DPMs - too high profile. There's a pair of plain police overalls on board the chopper. Slip them over the top during the flight.'

  'Will do.'

  I was still kneeling in the middle of the field, trying to chill out, unable yet to believe the nightmare was over.

  'The Haskins is still on the edge of the wood,

  Whinge. You'll need to collect it and take it with you.'

  'No bother. I'll get it now.'

  Away he went. As I looked for the last time at larrell's body, my mind took off on a fast re-run of all the aggravation he'd caused me: Kath's death, the night he'd appeared at the farm outside Belfast, my own attempts to top him, the firefight in the Colombian jungle - and now all this. My loathing for him still burned, but for the hundredth time I wondered how people like him and Marty Malone could let their whole lives be shaped - and cut short - by an irrational hatred of people they don't know, people they haven't even seen. How could anyone be so twisted by religion and history?

  Tony gave a grunt, trying to sit up, but I made him lie down again, saying, 'You lost a lot of blood. Just wait for the chopper.'

  'Geordie?' he murmured.

  'I'm here.'

  'Have you got Tim back?'

  'Not yet. But he's safe.'

  'Tracy?'

  'Safe as well.'

  'Thank God!'

  Unable to speak, I gave him a gentle thump on his good shoulder. Luckily Whinger chose that moment to return with the Haskins and launch one of his rhyming

  summations. 'Bacon and eggs,' he said.

  'Where?'

  'The dregs.' He pointed at the bodies. Despite the gore around us, the mention of food had suddenly made me feel starving.

  'Talking of eggs, I could eat four easily,' I said.

  'Maybe six.'

  The too. And a few slices of ham with them. And a few pints of Stella along with it.'

  The PIRA helicopter had vanished, but I could still hear an aircraft engine, and a minute later the QtkF Puma lifted over the horizon, heading for us. As it came in to land a few yards away I crouched down beside Tony to shield him from the blast of the down-draught.

  I could see several of our guys in the cabin, and they stayed put, giving thumbs-up signs, while two medics whipped out with a stretcher. The nature of Tony's wound was pretty obvious, from the tourniquet and the blood on his DPMs, so I didn't try to tell them what to do, and in a few moments they had him expertly trussed, ready to be loaded. As soon as the stretcher was safely in I gave Whinger a wave and followed aboard.

  The flight lasted only fifteen minutes. I slipped into the overalls somebody handed me, and looked down at the sunlit scene below. The time as still barely 0730, and on the motorways the morning rush hour was building up. As we skimmed over thousands of houses and roads jammed with crawling cars, I thanked my stars that I wasn't in the Granada, with Farrell very much alive and kicking, on our way to a doubtful rendezvous under the flightpath out of Heathrow. One more near-miss on the M25 and I'd have gone round the twist.

  The Puma was too big to land on the hospital's helipad, so it put down on a playing field, where an

  ambulance was waiting. I rode in the back with Tony the few yards to the casualty entrance, and suddenly there we were, back in the world of stainless steel, green gowns, starched white caps and smells of disinfectant. I found myself thinking of Pat, with all the pins sticking through his thigh. I realised I hadn't given him a thought in days, and now I resolved to check he was doing all right. Almost certainly Tony would end up alongside him in Wroughton.

  They took Tony straight into theatre, and for a minute I was left alone in a waiting room. Then a nurse, a pretty blonde woman, appeared and said, 'Sergeant Sharp?'

  'That's me. Where are they?'

  'I'll take you up.'

  She led the way up a short flight of steps and along a corridor. I followed, uncomfortably aware that in those ultra-hygiffnic surroundings I cut a peculiar figure. My boots were smeared with mud, and it was three days since I'd shaved. Thank God they couldn't see the Sig in its holster under my arm.

  The nurse walked so fast that I almost had to run to

  keep up with her. 'Are they all right?' I asked.

  'Well, they've had a pretty bad time.'

  I didn't like the sound of that, but I asked no more questions.

  We went through some swing-doors into what looked like a private ward, with single rooms leading off it to either side. A uniformed copper was hovering, and out of an office came a woman in a smart, dark-blue uniform. Dimly I realised that this was the matron - but one hell of a matron: young, chic, and with a dazzling smile.

  'Your wife's there, in number one,' she said, pointing at the nearest door.

  I ignored the mistake and said, 'Is she OK?'

  Before the matron could answer, a terrible noise burst through the door - half a scream, half a hoarse roar, inarticulate, but unmistakably Tracy's voice.

  I was through the door like a rocket. A doctor in a white coat was standing in the middle of the room with his back to me. Facing him, perched on the edge of the bed in white pyjamas and robe, was Tracy. Her appearance gave me a terrible jolt. Her hair had gone black - of c
ourse, no one had warned me of that - and her face was as white as her pyjamas, and screwed up with tension. She looked ten years older, the ghost of the girl I knew.

  I came to a halt, rooted by shock. Then she saw me.