by Tom Benson
“What’s your name?” she said, turning from the injury to the man’s face.
“Max.”
“Are you allergic to morphine, Max?” She held up a small ampoule of liquid.
“Nah—the only things I’m allergic to are fuckin’ cops.”
The ampoule was thrust down against Max’s thigh where Rachel had torn a hole in the jeans. The tiny needle pierced the skin, and the contents of the syringe jetted into Max’s system. Max looked from the injection to the woman. She was probably no more than 30, very good looking, and had spunk. Nobody responded to him the way she had, whether he was injured or not.
“Lie back and try to rest,” she said.
Max started to lie down. There were crunching and snapping sounds. He got up on one elbow and turned to see a thick layer of branches tucked between him and the snow. He looked from the insulation to the woman. It was at that point he realised all the rope bindings had been removed. The black leathers registered in Max’s brain, and he leant out to see around his saviour.
“Who’s ridin’ the Kwaki?” One helmet was resting on the saddle.
“Me.” Rachel glanced down at him as she produced a plastic bottle and a lint-free pad. She pressed and gently twisted the dressing against Max’s facial injuries. The excess dried blood washed away to give a clearer view of the injuries, and there were many.
“Right,” Max said. “If your pillion, who’s the rider?”
“Fucking pillion,” she said, raising her voice and her eyebrows. She looked him in the good eye. “Do you want me to fucking finish this or not?” She cursed, not because she was angry, but because she wanted to try some humour. Rachel smiled and shook her head as she completed the first aid. “I’m the rider; there’s nobody else.”
The big biker looked at the machine again and then the girl in leathers.
Rachel stood up, looked around and pulled out her mobile. She pressed two buttons, and it rang three times. “Hawk, it’s Rachel. I need our private medic.” She paused. “Yes, I’m fine, but we’ve got a man down.” She remained silent for a few seconds, listening, and then spoke rapidly.
Max stared and listened, as Rachel gave a situation report. The details were provided in short, sharp statements, and included information about casualties and coordinates. She listened for a moment, checked her watch and looked at Max.
“Okay, Boss, I’ll get on it now.” She listened again. “Yes, I’m carrying.” Rachel slapped her right hand against the left side of her leather jacket and nodded. “Okay, see you later.”
“You’re carrying what?” Max leant up on one elbow, and the branches crunched under him.
Rachel unzipped her jacket and half-turned to her left. Just visible, low under her left arm was the pistol grip of a black automatic. She raised her eyebrows and then re-zipped.
Max wiped the fresh snow from his face. “Who the fuck do you work for?”
“An extraordinary guy.” She winked before putting away her mobile. “You keep still and try to rest.” She turned and trudged through the snow to her Kawasaki. From one of the side panniers, she retrieved a small green canvas bag and a steel thermos.
Rachel returned, knelt down and handed Max three pain-killers and poured a hot drink from the small flask. “Get them down your neck and try to relax. We’ve got help coming in about half an hour.”
Max swallowed the pills and washed them down with the hot coffee. It wasn’t the textbook way to take medication, but these weren’t textbook circumstances.
Rachel produced a small cellophane pack, and a few seconds later un-wrapped a foil blanket. She spread it over Max. “I didn’t want to give you fluids, but my main aim at the moment is to keep you alive.”
Max took another gulp of the coffee, and it was topped up for him. He sipped the next cupful and looked across at where Joe had been. He couldn’t see a body. “Where’s Joe?”
“I managed to drag him into the bushes.” Rachel glanced over her left shoulder. “I’ve covered him up so nobody will see him—yet.”
“Did you check his pockets?”
She reached into an inside pocket and produced, a brown leather wallet, two small cellophane packs of white powder, a bunch of keys, and a piece of notepaper. “This is all he had on him.” She held up the piece of paper. “Are you the brother that the gunman used as bait?”
“How do you know—” Max accepted the note and read the message.
“I guess Joe was the intended target,” Rachel said, “because you’re tied up, but injured and alive. For some reason whoever the guy was, he wanted Joe dead. I reckon you would have been next, but you’d have been collateral damage.”
Max groaned as he reached into his pocket and produced an almost identical note. The only difference in the details was the time. “That bastard is a fuckin’ dead man walkin’.”
“We’ll worry about him later. Will you be okay if I continue tidying up around here?”
“Tidyin’?” He squinted his good eye.
“I want to get your bike, and Joe’s bike camouflaged amongst the bushes, and then I want to cover some of the tracks.”
Max’s brow furrowed.
Rachel said, “I need to have this place prepared. We’ll get you out, and I’ll organise recovery of your bike.”
Max shook his head. “What about Joe, and his bike and his—gear?”
“We’ll have to leave Joe and his machine out here. The authorities will locate him and his bike.” She handed over Joe’s personal effects. “You take this stuff. I’ll make an anonymous call to the police once our team have recovered your bike and cleared your tracks.”
Max slipped Joe’s wallet, keys and bags of cocaine into an inside pocket.
It took Rachel fifteen minutes to roll her bike and the two Triumph Tigers deeper into the bushes. She covered the Triumphs with branches so the falling snow would layer and hide them.
When asked, she lied and told Max she hadn’t spotted the registration number of the gunman’s car. It was during the many questions about the black 4 x 4 there was the sound of another vehicle arriving on the scene.
A dark green Toyota Land Cruiser purred along through the snow, performed a smooth turn and reversed up close to the injured man. Two men in white overalls got out. While one man rearranged the seat layout in the back, the other one spoke quietly to Rachel.
“Right, Max.” Rachel knelt beside him. “I need you to trust me, okay?”
“Yeah, what’s goin’ on?”
“These guys are taking you to a private clinic. We have to get the bullet out of your leg.” She held up a hand to halt the two guys when boots crunched in the snow behind her. She gazed into Max’s good eye. “I’ll get in touch with your guys at Byres Road.”
“How do you know who to contact?”
“Byres Road is in the note, and anybody would recognise your colours.”
He nodded, realising she was right. “What are you gonna’ tell them?”
“I’ll mention an accident, and you’ll call later. There will be no mention of Joe. As soon as you can stand up, you’ll be delivered to your house.” She glanced over her shoulder at the men with the Toyota and then turned to Max. “Do you know the shooter’s name?”
He squinted. “Why do you want to know his name?”
“I want to try to find him for you, but our people won’t be taking any action.”
“You don’t need his name.” He turned away. “I’ll deal with him.”
“Okay, but do me a favour. Don’t have your guys going after him, at least not yet.”
“Why? What do you know about him?”
“Nothing yet, but I want to find out if he’s connected. If I find out anything of interest, I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay.” He nodded.
“When the police work out who Joe is, they’ll investigate this area, and then they’ll come to question you,” she said. “By the time you get home, I want you to have a serious case of fucking amnesia.”
Max
nodded, and one corner of his lips twitched.
Rachel said, “When you hear about Joe, you act shocked and angry.”
“Deal.” Max nodded again. He accepted Rachel’s slender hand in his massive fist, holding it briefly with a gentle but firm grip.
“I’m sorry about Joe.” Rachel covered their handshake with her other hand.
“So am I, Rachel,” Max said. “So am I.” The use of her name softened his tone.
“I’ll keep watch here until I know there is a response from the authorities.” There was a glistening in Max’s eye. Rachel looked away for a moment as if in thought. “Let’s get him out of here guys.” She took a business card from inside her jacket and showed it to Max.
He had time to focus on the words BTL Enterprises and a phone number before Rachel slipped the card inside his jacket.
The two men helped the injured biker up onto the tailboard and assisted him inside on a sliding seat so that he sat with his back against the back panels of the front seats.
“Rachel,” Max called and waited until they made eye contact.
“Yeah?” She waited.
Max waved her over.
She went around and opened a rear passenger door.
Max whispered. “The shooter called himself Mr H. His ex-wife is called Steph. Joe was keen on her.”
“Thanks, Max.” She winked.
“Remember Rachel—he’s fuckin’ mine.”
Rachel nodded. She pulled down the zipper on her jacket and produced an old black Webley revolver. It was still wet in some of the working parts where the snow had melted. “I found this where he’d parked. There are three rounds still in the chamber, but it will need a decent servicing.” She slipped it inside Max’s jacket.
“I owe you,” Max said, and for a moment his features softened.
“Call me if you find him first.” She stood back, lifted the forefinger of her right hand to her forehead and gave the salute that she usually used around her colleagues. She closed the door and waited until the vehicle had gone before she poured the remaining coffee from her thermos.
She wiped the snow from a large boulder and sat down. From a pocket, she produced another piece of paper which she’d removed from Joe’s wallet.
Three numbers scrawled on the crumpled corner of a magazine page were a lead. One was eleven-digits, so it was a mobile. Beneath it, the number twenty circled, and then a four-digit number. Rachel set her coffee down on the boulder beside her and pulled out her mobile.
“Hi, Annabel. Everything is in hand. One package has been taken and one remaining. We also require the removal of two sets of wheels.” She paused. “I have some information.” She read the details from the piece of paper but didn’t mention the names given by Max, or the partial registration number of the 4 x 4.
5. Specialists
.
Tuesday 22nd June
Colombia
South America
Jake Carter focused straight ahead, through the long grass. Beads of perspiration teased his lashes and made his face itch. The stench of damp jungle foliage and undergrowth had an aroma all of its own, but it wasn’t Jake’s first time lying up in such terrain.
A camouflaged wooden building was fifty metres to his front. It stood in a clearing, but with a dense canopy of overhanging greenery. Natural concealment might have been considered sufficient by some, but two armed sentries made regular patrols of the perimeter.
The organisers must have watched movies about the US forces in Vietnam. There was no foliage around the building out to around ten metres. The clearance produced a wide boundary for any uninvited guests to attempt crossing without cover.
It was a much narrower margin than had been used in Vietnam, but there was adequate prohibitive open space. In this case, the boundary area was small. A broad boundary could be spotted from overhead.
Jake turned his left wrist. It was 16:15 local time. He would allow another fifteen minutes to ensure the other three members of his Special Air Service (SAS) team were in position. Moving in the tropical jungle was difficult enough, but doing so in the leopard crawl was a painstaking task, requiring stealth, patience and extreme fitness.
For men of their calibre, there was no discomfort in the necessity to move on their bellies, but they each had a location to reach and a cut-off time to do so. Once in place, they would report in with a click on their respective throat mikes. When all were in place, Jake would transmit a double click. The team would synchronise watches.
Ten metres to Jake’s left would be Colin Cairns. Jake and Colin were to the south of the target, and the other pair would be fifty metres to the west. Only two sides were covered to prevent the possibility of friendly fire. A strange notion—friendly fire.
While Colin had worked as a mechanic in a motorbike workshop in the east end of Glasgow, Jake was a pickpocket who’d joined a small band of vigilantes. In the summer of ‘96, the two men met during one of the vigilante group’s missions.
By then, Jake had already decided to join the Royal Engineers, but he had injuries and was unfit. As a regular at a gym, Colin suggested he could help Jake get into shape. He organised a training regime that was hard for Jake to accept at first, but he had deep-seated reasons that helped him drive on when the going got tough.
In February ‘97, when it got close to Jake’s date for attending basic military training, he went for a farewell drink in Glasgow with his vigilante associates and Colin. It was during that evening when Colin admitted he had enlisted too. He had secretly signed up to join the same regiment.
The pair became known throughout training as the Terrible Twins. Challenge one, and you challenged both. Four years after settling into trade, both as explosives specialists, Jake applied for selection for the legendary Special Air Service. He knew a man who had been in that select group of Special Forces, and he wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Just as Colin had helped prepare Jake for joining the regular army, the pair trained together to take Jake’s physical fitness and military skills to a new, higher level. Instead of going for a run in vest and shorts, Jake wore combat suit and boots. Also, he carried a Bergen on his back, loaded with at least forty pounds of weight.
Colin organised cross-country routes for the pair of them. The courses would involve hill work and long stretches across the sand within the woods. On most days, the two men would swim, run, and spend at least an hour in the gym working with weights.
Sunday was always a rest day, but every other day was a training day.
There would be more to proper preparation than physical fitness. Every week they booked an hour session in the armoury. Colin observed as Jake worked with the standard weapons; the two available variants of the SA-80 rifle, plus the Browning 9mm pistol.
While blindfolded, Jake would strip an individual weapon down to its parts, ready for daily cleaning. He was allowed a brief pause before Colin suggested reassembly of the firearm—still blindfolded. When Jake was proficient with all of the weapons, the next stage was to go through the same routines but against the clock.
Colin would go out in daylight with a map to a wooded area and hide a small item. Jake then had to locate the object using a ten-figure grid reference. At first, the things would be near to the edge of a track, but as Jake got faster, the hiding places used were deeper in the greenery.
When Jake proved his proficiency, Colin would hide an item in daylight and then go along to observe Jake looking for it in darkness. Colin carried a flashlight, but only in case of emergency.
On some of their evening training sessions indoors, Colin tested Jake’s knowledge of First Aid, and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare (NBC). Both men already took a keen interest in current affairs.
The failure rate on the bi-annual SAS selection courses was high, but Jake intended to make the grade. On occasion, he cursed Colin for pushing him almost to breaking point, but his friend reminded him to remain positive in the face of adversity. The right attitude was just as i
mportant as physical ability and military proficiency.
Jake attended the summer selection course and was a successful candidate. He endured more pain and discomfort than he thought himself capable, and he remained positive and focused throughout the assessment. Mental attitude had been the key to success.
The level Jake had aimed for ensured he made it through the rigorous and world-renowned selection process, and there were many occasions when he was close to missing the elusive goal. The successful candidates were awarded their coveted sandy-coloured berets with the winged-dagger cap-badge. Only seven men passed the selection course, and it had started with one hundred and eighty entrants.
Six months later, Colin had prepared himself with the help of two other colleagues in the Royal Engineer unit. He attended and passed on the winter SAS selection course. There were only six men who made it through.
During the four-day escape and evasion phase, one man had died in an accident. The casualty had slipped and fractured a leg. He was found dead in deep snow six hours later, following a massive search across the Brecon Beacons—the Welsh hills known for their unforgiving contours.
On the summer selection, it was a regular occurrence for candidates to suffer from heat exhaustion, and in winter it was usually the extreme cold that claimed victims.
Within a few months, following successful completion of selection, Colin was once again working alongside his friend from Glasgow. As members of the elite unit, the pair served together on clandestine operations across the world, in the desert, jungle and urban surroundings. They found themselves in life or death situations more than once, but they continued to reduce the number of bad guys in the world.
Movement near Jake caused him to glance left, to move his eyes, but not his head. A giant snake rested its body on Jake’s forearm. The reptile moved forward slowly, and the rapidly flicking forked tongue caught the eye. The massive animal slithered over Jake’s arm and the body of his C8-SFW assault weapon. The weapon had been too close to the undergrowth for the snake to go underneath, so it had opted to slither over to maintain its route.
