Land of Fire

by Chris Ryan

  Crawling on, I discovered the bodies of Concha's friends. One had been dead already but the others lay heaped where they had been shot. As far as I could tell each had been slotted with a single hit to the head. Whoever had done this had killed them first, then gone on to finish off Josh where he lay helpless to defend himself and I swore again that I'd make the cunt suffer.

  I knew who it was then, too. My God, I kept thinking, how could I have been so stupid all this time? The Argentines had been playing us for patsies all along, and I had never once suspected.

  I moved cautiously up to the cab, careful to keep my shadow from falling on the driver, and peered through the hole in the back. The solitary headlamp cast its beam into the falling snow, the lights of the dash cast a dim glow inside, and I could make out the shape of the driver hunched over the wheel. There seemed to be no one else in the cab no sign of Concha. A bend was approaching, the driver's head shifted as he hauled the steering wheel round and I caught the unmistakeable outline of a beard.

  I waited till we were round the corner and the truck had straightened up again. Then I stowed the pistol away, unslung my rifle and pushed it through the hole. He was so intent on the road ahead that he didn't notice till I jabbed the muzzle into the side of his neck.

  He stiffened and the truck's nose jerked round, swinging outwards. "Watch yourself!" I snapped. "No sudden movements."

  Carefully he straightened up again. Keeping the muzzle pressed firmly against his neck, I reached a foot down through the gap in the rear bulkhead and kicked the gear lever into neutral. The engine roared as it spun free, the truck slowed, and Seb took his foot off the throttle.

  "Put the hand-brake on," I snarled at him. "Put the hand-brake on or I'll fucking shoot you where you sit, you bastard!" I jabbed the rifle deeper into his neck. He gave a grunt of pain and reached out and jerked the brake lever up. The truck slithered to a halt on the gravel amid the empty pampas. "Keep both hands on the wheel where I can see them."

  He obeyed, his big hands gripping the wheel tightly. Looking straight ahead, he spoke for the first time, his voice harsh and controlled. "It isn't what you think," he said.

  "Shut the fuck up!" I told him. "Open your mouth once more and I'll blow your head ofF your fucking shoulders!" I was so mad with hatred and fury it was as much as I could do not to kill him there and then. I squeezed through the gap that had been torn in the bulkhead, keeping my rifle in his neck and my finger on the trigger. I climbed down on to the front passenger seat and crouched next to him, resting against the near side door.

  I had kept the gun trained on Seb all the time. "This thing is on full automatic. One move and you get the entire box in the belly. You'll die screaming. Now, take your pistol out by the muzzle and slide it across the seat. Do it slowly."

  He did as he was told. I took the weapon and put it in my pocket, then lowered my left hand into the foot well and touched something soft. Concha's hair. The scalp was matted with blood.

  "She's still alive," he said tersely.

  "She would be," I said. "You climbed into the cab to speak to her and hit her on the skull with your gun when she wasn't looking. You had to do it quietly for fear of alerting the others. Then you went back into the rear and whacked the others one by one."

  "It is all war," he sighed. "You killed many of our people tonight. Those men who burned in the hangar they suffered. We do what has to be done."

  "We?" I yelled at him. "We?"

  He was silent for a spell. Finally he replied, "My father was

  British. My mother was Argentinian. When the war came I had to make a choice."

  "And you chose your mother's side?" I said bitterly.

  He nodded slowly, as if he had been giving the matter much thought. "The British approached me at the outset of the campaign, asking me to work for them. I reported the contact to our intelligence people and they told me to accept the offer."

  "So, way back in 1982 you were a double agent then?" I asked. "You met us at the border and deliberately guided us into the ambush? My brother Andy was killed because of you?"

  "You were supposed to have been picked up at the rendezvous point. If you had surrendered, there would have been no shooting and you would all have been set free after the war."

  "Fuck that," I told him. "What about this time round? You met us off the beach and led us into the airbase, but first you wrecked our communications gear so we couldn't call in to report what we had seen. Then, when we contacted you over the phone, you told the marines the location of the RV point. When Concha and I escaped you waited for us at the emergency RV and brought us in. But then you helped us to take the guard post. What happened did I interrupt when you were warning your pals on the base over the phone?"

  "Yes," he admitted. "I only had a chance to tell them you were aiming to attack the planes."

  "And so they were waiting for us."

  "You were too good for us, though. You shot yourselves out of the ambush and destroyed the planes and with them our hopes of retaking the Malvinas."

  I held the rifle on him. "You shouldn't have killed Josh," I said levelly.

  He shrugged. "He was a brave man. I was going to leave him but he grabbed me by the leg and threw me off balance. He fought like a tiger, even though he was dying. There was no time to lose. You might have come back any moment. I had no choice but to shoot him."

  Poor, brave Josh. He had fought till his last breath, and saved our lives at the cost of his own.

  There came a groan from down in the foot well Concha was stirring, moaning softly. I squeezed her shoulder gently to let her know I was there. How long could she have been out? A few minutes only. With luck she would have suffered only mild concussion. She was fortunate to be alive.

  I heard boots thudding outside, then a bang on the door. Doug and the others had reached us. They stood in a gasping circle, weapons trained on the cab.

  "Get down," I said to Seb. He climbed stiffly out into the snow and I followed him down. "Watch him," I told Nobby, who pushed Seb against the side of the truck with his arms out and kicked his legs apart.

  "Jesus! What the fuck's been going on?" said Doug. "Who topped the guys in the back?" He was bewildered. To the three of them it looked as if there had been a fire-fight between the Argentines and me, in which Josh had somehow got killed.

  "It was him," I told him, with a nod at Seb, adding, "You were right all along not to trust him."

  "He killed Josh?" Doug couldn't have cared less about Julian and the rest. As far as he was concerned, the more dead Argentines the better. But killing a mate was something else.

  His face went hard. "You want to whack the fucker, or can I?" Doug meant what he said. He would have taken Seb into a ditch and let him have one in the head right then. Josh had meant a lot to me; I'd seen a bit of myself in him, and now a part of me was dead along with him. This had been my last mission; I'd fucked up, and Josh was dead because of it.

  "I'll do it," I said. I handed Doug my 203 and took out the pistol again. The others watched.

  I grabbed Seb by the shoulder and spun him round.

  "Wait!" he cried. "I can still help you. I was a double agent, yes. So I have intelligence vital to your superiors. They will be very angry if you kill me now. You have to take me back with you."

  "Fuck to that, you arse hole Doug's anger boiled over.

  Swinging his gun like a club, he caught Seb in the gut. Seb fell to his knees, gagging, and Doug kicked him savagely in the ribs, knocking him into the snow.

  "Leave it out, Doug," I said.

  Seb writhed in agony in the roadway. "You'll never make it across the frontier without my help," he gasped. "The border is heavily garrisoned now. At first light there will be patrols out, helicopters searching."

  "Yeah, and you'll show us a way across like the last time, cunt!" Doug raged, launching another kick at him. "I lost two mates in that show thanks to you, you bastard!"

  Seb pulled himself back against the wheel of the truck. He
spat blood from his mouth. "MI6 has a helicopter on stand-by on the Chilean side. I have my phone. If I call in from the border it can pick you up."

  "You have the phone on you?" I asked.

  He nodded. "In the pocket of my coat."

  I patted him down and found the device.

  "It has a GPS unit built into the receiver," Seb went on. "I transmit the position and the helicopter flies in to the rendezvous."

  I weighed the phone in my hand. "You told me this thing only works within a short distance of the border."

  "Within two to three miles," he agreed. "We have to be within range of the base station at San Sebastian."

  "Fuck this!" Doug stormed. "Don't listen to him. It's another of his tricks."

  I ignored him. "So the deal is, we keep you alive and you send the code to bring in the helicopter to lift us out?"

  "Don't trust him," Doug snarled.

  "If I am lying then you will kill me," Seb countered. "The road is bad from here on it was washed out in a storm two weeks ago. It will take you most of the night to reach the border. Then I will make the call. What have you to lose?"

  I wanted to get away from here and until we were safely out of Argentina Seb might be useful, traitor or not.

  I slipped the phone into my pocket. "Put him in the back of the truck," I ordered. "Tie his hands and feet so he can't escape." Doug hissed between his teeth. "OK, boss, if that's how you want it." He sighed and jabbed Seb with his gun. "On your feet,

  you."

  "And, Doug," I called after him, 'don't mess him up. We need him in a fit state to make that call."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Seb had been right about the state of the road. Within a couple of miles the hard surface had crumbled into a morass of loose gravel and mud in which the truck lurched and swayed, crawling along at a snail's pace. While I cradled Concha's head in my lap Nobby fought the wheel as we struggled northwards. The snow had changed to a light powdery dusting, which seemed to add little to the depth on the ground but made visibility next to impossible. If our single headlamp had given up on us we would have been finished.

  We crossed several bridges one of them spanning the river Doug and I had swum across on the mission twenty years before and passed through two villages. Nowhere though did we meet any resistance; all the houses were shuttered against the storm. Perhaps the telephone lines were down or perhaps the inhabitants wanted no part in the government's battles.

  We met no other traffic of any kind. I assumed that the border had been closed and most local movements shut down by the weather. No one but madmen or desperados would be out in such conditions.

  As the night wore on we changed over at intervals to give everyone a chance to warm out in the cab. Only Concha was allowed to remain. She slept much of the time, but towards five o'clock, when I returned from a stint in the rear snow-covered and shivering, I found her sitting up and talking.

  "We must be only twenty kilometres from the border now," she told me. "Another two hours perhaps at this speed."

  I told her of Seb's boast that the border would be strongly garrisoned and she shrugged. "Usually there is only a small unit of customs and police. It is possible though that the military has taken extra precautions. In any case, there are ways around the town smugglers' routes. They are long and slow, but I can lead you across."

  I glanced from the window. Time was running against us. The weather was moderating, and with it the likelihood of the Argies coming after us increased. If there was a helicopter, the sooner we could rendezvous with it the better.

  Concha sighed. "So many killings ... Is anything ever worth dying for?"

  "As a soldier you have to be prepared to give your life for what you believe in," I said. "That goes for all soldiers, Argentine or British. If your number comes up that's the way it has to be."

  "And you? Will you go on until your number comes up one day, as you put it?"

  "No," I told her. "This is my last mission, me and Doug."

  "And will you be sad?"

  "Sad to leave the Regiment," I answered. "It's been my whole life."

  "Tell me about it," she murmured, leaning her head against my shoulder.

  So while we ground on through the night I told her about Northern Ireland and the battles to contain the terrorist bombers; of fighting drug lords in Columbia and lifting war criminals out of safe havens in the Balkans. I described storming hijacked aircraft, and Nobby told her of the time he had parachuted on to a cruise liner in mid ocean that was being held by fundamentalists.

  "Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked me when I had done.

  "No," I told her with a grin. "Not right now." I thought about Jenny as I spoke, but that was all in the past now.

  She had fallen asleep again by the time seven o'clock approached. The snow had changed to a light powder that hung in the air, glistening in the beam of the headlamp. The road condition had improved, and we appeared to be running more or less on a hard surface again.

  After a while the snow stopped altogether. Nobby eased off the throttle.

  I sat up. "What's wrong?" I hoped it wasn't a problem with the truck.

  "I think I can see lights ahead."

  "Cut the headlamp." I reached for my gun and we stared across the pale snow at the scattered pinpricks in the distance. "Looks like a small town. Probably San Sebastian. We must be close to the border."

  "About fucking time too," Nobby said. "The engine's starting to run hot."

  I leaned over to squint at the gauge. It was hovering at the edge of the red zone. "Oil or water leak?" I hazarded.

  "Could be either. With the treatment the old bus has had these past few hours it's amazing she's got this far."

  "Well, try to keep her going. The border can't be more than four or five kilometres off."

  I crawled through into the back and shook Doug alert. "I'm going to take Seb up front to try contacting Chile."

  "Aye," he said. "If the fucker gives you any trouble, let me know and I'll give him some persuading."

  I pulled Seb up and untied his hands and feet. We had given him his turn inside during the night, but now he was so numbed he could hardly stand. It took two of us to get him up and push him through into the cab.

  He rubbed his fingers and blew on them. Ice had congealed in his beard and eyebrows, and his eyes were red with fatigue and pain. "Where are we now?" he asked.

  I told him that judging by the odometer reading we had done eighty kilometres and must be close to the border. I took the phone out. "Tell me the code and I'll punch it in."

  "The code to switch the phone on is simple: 241982, the second of April 1982 the date for Operation Azul, the occupation of the Malvinas."

  I tapped in the numbers and the display came alive. I showed it to him.

  "The signal is very weak. It would be better to drive on a while till it improves."

  Ten minutes later the signal bars indicated some reasonable reception. "What's the number?" I asked him.

  "First we have to find our position with the GPS."

  This part of the device was more or less standard with others that I had used. I obtained a fix and noted down the coordinates. "OK, give me the number to call. And remember play any tricks and it's your life you're fucking with."

  Seb rattled off a ten-digit figure. I committed it to memory and punched the buttons. To my relief the display showed a connection. "Right, we're through. Now what? You said a text message."

  "Condor, like the eagle."

  "That's all?"

  "That is the code-word for requesting an immediate extraction. Then you add the GPS coordinate. That is enough."

  I did as he instructed and pressed the send button. The display told me the message had been sent.

  "Leave the phone on. If we shift our position we will have to update the GPS fix. When the helicopter is in the air it can interrogate the unit and home in on us."

  That was ingenious. "A clever bit of kit," I told him. "How long do w
e have to wait?"

  "They will be waiting for the call. To get the aircraft into the air, half an hour then we are only a few minutes' flying time away."

  I retied Seb's hands. "Might as well stop here and let the engine cool down," I said to Nobby. "No sense in driving any further than we have to."

  We sat in the darkness, listening to the tick of the engine block cooling while the wind played about us. Kiwi got down to have a pee. "Don't stray too far," I warned him. "If anything comes along we may have to take off in a hurry."

  Faint fingers of grey were creeping over the eastern horizon,

  and the darkness thinned so that the outlines of objects became clearer. We could almost make out one another's faces. Concha sat up and looked about. "I know this place. The border is only two kilometres away. We could walk it easily even in the snow."

  I shook my head. "You heard what Seb said the border will be sealed tight and the Argies will be waiting for us. They'll have patrols out, helicopters, the works, and they won't be taking prisoners. Tabbing out is a last resort." We were all of us tired. The thought of stepping into a nice big helicopter and being whisked back to the warmth and safety of Port Stanley was hard to resist.

  Time crept past. I looked at the watch Seb had lent me half-past seven. Maybe there was no helicopter. Suppose it was just a ploy of Seb's to delay us here? It would be dawn in another hour. If we were to try for the border on foot I knew we had better leave soon, before it got light.

  I eased Concha's head off my shoulder and turned to the rear to talk to Doug. "We can't hang about here much longer. I think we should start footing it across the border and call the helicopter again from the other side."

  Doug grunted. I could tell he didn't like the idea. "You're the boss," he said.

  At that moment the handset in my pocket emitted a beep. "What's that?" I said to Seb.

  "The helicopter is interrogating the GPS receiver. It must be airborne and on its way."

  Everybody cheered up.

  We waited a few minutes more.