by Andy McNab
But Ste went on in his own way. ‘He grew up here, he lived here until he joined the army a year or so ago, and I’m almost sure he was the man who shot Mike, and …’
Suddenly Ste was pacing around the room on the other side of the grille, from side to side and from one end to the other. It meant that he briefly came into Sean’s field of vision. His eyes were round with anger and shock. But Sean couldn’t make out the rest of his face – bizarrely it was covered with a surgical mask.
‘This morning!’ Ste shouted. ‘It was him! Why didn’t I see it …’
‘Explain …?’ Even more purring, like a cat that is about to pounce on the mouse.
‘When I came back from Whipps this morning, there were a pair of maintenance men in the flat. I took them for the usual incompetent— But one of them, the tall one, had his hat down over his face, and now I think about it, I’m sure … I’m almost sure it was Harker. He’s meant to be on leave with his friends, but if he’s snooping … Don’t you see? They’re on to us! Do you think he was planting bugs?’
The shock socked Sean in the guts. Busted! Like the time he’d been on lookout while Gaz wired a car: he’d glanced away for just a second to follow a fit girl with his eyes, and when he turned back, there was a cop coming from one direction, a traffic warden from another and the car’s owner from a third, and there was no good way out of it except to run for it now. Shit fuck arse wank – busted …
‘This morning? At what time?’
‘Whenever I came home. Tennish?’
A pause, and then Fayez had reverted to his previous tone of calm, convincing reassurance. ‘And over twelve hours later, here we are. The estate is not crawling with special forces. They may suspect, but they have found nothing—’
Everything happened at once. Wolston head-butted Sean’s knees as a half-second warning that he was about to be dropped, and a voice shouted, ‘Who are you?’
By the time he got to ‘are’ Sean was falling, and he hit the ground on ‘you?’ He dropped into a crouch to absorb the impact, and halfway to straightening up he finally clocked the shape of a man hurrying towards them down the passage, and realized what the outstretched arm meant. Wolston grabbed Sean by the collar and hauled him sideways just as the crack of a pistol shot echoed down the tunnel.
Chapter 22
Friday 4 August, 00:00 BST
There was only one possible place affording cover and Wolston headed for it – a doorless concrete alcove in the wall directly opposite the room.
The walls of the alcove recessed to each side, away from the entrance, which meant that Sean and Wolston could press themselves into it on either side. It was the one thing in their favour, because otherwise they were sitting ducks. If anyone wanted to take them out, they would have to burst in and take a fifty-fifty guess as to which side of the doorway the target was. And with Sean and Wolston on either side, one of them would always be lucky.
Unless there were two guys with guns.
How many times had Sean practised something like this? Being in a situation where, in real life, a round could hit him at any moment. He had been taught not to think about that. Your job was to take down the opposition. You didn’t look any further ahead than that. Every breath you took was a small victory over the guys who wanted to kill you. As Adams liked to say, ‘If you are still breathing, you are still winning.’
So, even though his heart was pounding fit to bust, he forced his fears into a small ball and pushed them to the back of his mind. Concentrate on the mission. He gazed across the short distance of a couple of metres at Wolston, flat against the wall on the far side of the doorway. He could only make out his outline and the whites of his eyes. Wolston’s teeth were bared, probably not a big cheesy grin. Something else glinted as he held up his hand. He had a knife. Shit, where had that come from? But Sean was very glad of it. It didn’t exactly level the playing field but it made it a shade less vertical.
They heard the door to the room open, and Fayez speaking.
‘Jaz? What is—’
‘Stay there!’ It was impossible to guess the newcomer’s ethnicity from his name or accent. ‘Intruders. Two of them.’
Sean could picture them communicating by gesture. Jaz pointing with his gun at the entrance to the alcove. Fayez, his eyes going wide. Maybe he was retreating into the room. Or pulling out his own gun.
‘Armed?’
‘Unknown.’
Sean heard Ste’s voice:
‘Was one of them white, tall, fair-haired, well-built?’
‘Looked like it.’
‘Sean Harker?’ Fayez asked it quietly and must have got a nod, because he raised his voice. ‘Sean Harker? Is that you?’
The purr was back. The more Sean heard it, the deadlier it sounded. He kept quiet, not taking his eyes off Wolston. The corporal silently shook his head.
‘You must know there is no escape in there. Come out now and we can talk about this. Otherwise you know what is inevitable.’
A pause.
‘We know where you live, Sean Harker, and we know you have no way of warning anyone. There is no reception down here, as you have doubtless worked out. We can hold you at bay in there and send a party to investigate your flat.’
Where everyone was as unarmed as he was. The thought sent a shiver through Sean’s body. Someone with a gun, kicking their way in through the door – or why even go that far? They could just shoot through the kitchen window, taking Mitra and Dave out before they could react.
But that only might happen. Sean knew what would happen if he broke cover now. So he stayed silent.
Fayez gave a loud, theatrical sigh. ‘I can see you are not prepared to be reasonable—’
Jaz burst in. He fired a shot as he approached the alcove, just to make a loud noise and disorientate Sean and Wolston. It whanged into the concrete wall, and he leaped in after it.
He could have gone left or right. He went right, towards Sean. Sean was already braced for the move. A rookie mistake was to fight the man. The important thing was the gun – the thing he was holding that could kill people. So Sean went for that. He knew the move to disarm a guy waving a handgun around – grab the barrel with one hand, hook your other hand under the hammer and pull.
But Jaz had had training of his own. Somehow there was a fluid blur, and then the gun was in his other hand, not the one Sean was aiming for. He fired again. In the confined space the shot crashed against Sean’s eardrums and he felt the round pluck at his shirt, missing the skin of his ribs by millimetres. No time for finessing now – with a clenched fist he lashed out at the centre of Jaz’s face.
They were now too close together for Jaz to bring his gun to bear, but again he seemed to blur and Sean’s punch missed its target. Next thing a pair of hammer blows from Jaz’s free hand thudded into Sean’s ribs, making him gasp, and then his knee pounded into Sean’s balls like an RPG. Sean bellowed and dropped to his knees, bent over double as his guts exploded in agony.
Dimly, through his pain, he clocked a couple of things:
Jaz had stepped back and was lifting the gun to point at his head.
Shapes behind him – Fayez and the rest of them, unarmed, urging their pet killer on.
And Wolston was still stuck in the same place, just looking at them, his knife in his hand.
With all the will in the world, and with only a second left before his brains were blown into jelly, Sean still couldn’t make his body straighten up to lunge at Jaz. But he could sort of topple over, rolling the bulk of his body against Jaz’s legs and making him stumble backwards.
And bump into Wolston – which seemed to jolt the corporal out of whatever daze he had gone into. Wolston flung his arms around Jaz to pin his gun hand to his side. Jaz raked his foot down the inside of Wolston’s leg – provoking a cry of pain. Then Jaz had wriggled free, and he and Wolston were grappling face to face.
Another shot, and this one sounded different: muffled, not echoing. The round had ploughed into Wolston’s chest. Blood spr
ayed against the wall behind him and he crumpled like May had done at the airport.
But he wasn’t dead yet. As he fell, he lashed out with the knife – it sliced into Jaz’s gun hand. Jaz screamed and let the pistol drop. Sean, still lying in an agonized knot on the floor, scrabbled for it with one hand while the other still clutched at the nuclear explosion going on between his legs.
But there was no one to aim it at. Jaz had gone, and the door of the room opposite stood open. Dimly, over Wolston’s groans and ragged breathing, Sean heard the sound of running footsteps. He summoned every atom of willpower, mind over matter, to force his aching body to stagger up and out into the passage. He raised the gun, single handed, still unable to prise his other hand off his balls. The barrel wavered like he was a kid with a potato gun at the funfair. He couldn’t make himself fire without being able to aim it properly. Through blurred vision he just had time to make out the fleeing figures before they disappeared. Four of them, different shapes and sizes. Ste and Fayez both had surgical masks. Fayez was helping Zara. She was in jeans and a hoodie with rolled-up sleeves, and she had a bandage around her upper arm. From the way she staggered along, she was as weak as her voice had sounded. Jaz was light on his feet, but he stumbled as he clutched at his injured hand, and Ste was bizarrely lugging what looked like a picnic cooler.
Then they were gone.
Sean stuffed the weapon into his waistband and limped back to Wolston. The details of what he had just seen were put to one side for the moment. The corporal was the priority. He collapsed onto his knees and put his first two fingers lightly against Wolston’s neck, desperately feeling for a pulse.
Don’t you dare go and die on me fuck it don’t you dare don’t you dare die we’re not going to lose another one don’t you die …
And there it was – a beat. And another. Just about regular, but not strong.
Meanwhile he assessed the injury, eyes darting over the corporal’s still form, hands poised for whatever turned out to be the first priority. The round had hit Wolston’s right pecs and gone all the way through. Blood soaked the front of his shirt and pooled beneath him.
Sean put his ear to Wolston’s chest and listened. He already had the heartbeat but he needed to hear the breathing. If Wolston had a punctured lung, then he would have a sucking chest wound that slurped as he breathed. The lung would have collapsed and air would be sucked into the cavity through the hole.
There was no slurping, just ragged but regular gasps. Lungs intact.
But he still wasn’t in the clear. A shot in the same place on Wolston’s left would have grazed his heart and he would probably be dead by now. But the shock wave as the round passed through any part of the chest area was bad news – a massive jolt to the central nervous system; maybe enough to send him into fibrillation.
And it could still be enough to top him. Just a little more mistreatment could make his body say, Fuck this, I’m switching off.
Wolston’s face was grey, even in the dim light. His eyes were wide as dinner plates.
‘Hold on, mate. Don’t let go.’
Basic first-aid procedure took over. Even though he still felt like someone had ripped his balls off with a pair of rusty pliers, Sean prepared to tend to his friend.
First thing – gain access to the wound. Sean found Wolston’s dropped knife and slit his shirt open. The entry hole was a dark circle in the middle of his shoulder, with red blood surging in pulses out onto his white skin. Sean drew a breath, thinking ahead. He’d had basic field medical training – everyone had. He knew how to handle a gunshot wound with his eyes shut. But that assumed he had the usual field medical kit on him. Sterile gauze, bandages, lactate solution to make up the volume of lost blood.
‘Hang on, Joe. Eyes on the prize, right? We’re going to improvise.’
Keep him talking – that was one thing Sean could do. Wolston nodded weakly.
Priority had to be to stop the bleeding. You stop the flow by applying pressure and replacing the fluids that have already leaked out. Nothing else would work if there wasn’t enough blood inside Wolston to keep his body going. So Sean needed bandages. He could have used Wolston’s shirt, but it was already soaked to capacity, and Sean needed something that was still absorbent. So he pulled off his own shirt, and used the knife to cut it roughly in two, stuffing the collar mike into his pocket.
‘OK. Gonna roll you onto your left side. You with me?’ Sean braced his hands behind Wolston’s back. ‘Two, six, heave.’
He pulled the corporal over onto his side, and Wolston groaned loudly through clenched teeth as his body moved. But the wound was on his right and everyone’s heart is on the left, so just by turning Wolston over, Sean had elevated the wound above the heart. The heart wanted to pump blood out of the holes, but simple gravity would help keep it in.
Sean cut the rest of Wolston’s shirt away so he could peek at the exit wound. It was larger than the entry one, as he had known it would be. The round would have slowed down and spread out inside Wolston’s body, even if it hadn’t hit anything solid. It would carve out a tunnel that was wider than the entry wound, and push out all the flesh and blood and muscle ahead of it, compressed by the shock wave, making the wound even bigger.
Sean folded one half of his shirt into a square and clamped it against the entry wound. He took Wolston’s left hand and used it to keep it in place. ‘Hold that there, right?’
He took the other half of the shirt, balled it up and forced it as hard as he could into the exit wound. Wolston bit back a scream, but Sean held it there. It had to be as far in as possible.
Sean cocked a look across the passage at the open door. Ste and Fayez had had surgical masks. Maybe there would be other medical gear in there. Antiseptic fluid and decent bandages. But if he moved now, the improvised exit-wound bandage would fall off.
With clumsy tugs, Sean single-handedly unbuckled his belt.
‘You’re just … determined … to get your kit off …’ Wolston breathed.
‘You’ve already got further than Emma did.’ Sean whipped the belt around Wolston’s neck and shoulder and over the bandage, securing it as best he could. ‘I’m going to see if they’ve got anything across the way …’
Wolston’s breath rattled, but he nodded as Sean forced himself to his feet, still not quite able to stand up straight. He staggered over to the entrance of the alcove and took a look back – just in time to see Wolston’s hand slide limply to the floor.
Chapter 23
Friday 4 August, 00:15 BST
‘Shit!’
Wolston had passed out. Sean wavered for half a second, turning back, turning forward, then hurried on into the room. The corporal was still breathing, and Sean couldn’t do anything more for him without the proper gear.
There were sterile bandages in there, more than you could shake a stick at, in packages marked PROPERTY OF WHIPPS CROSS UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL. And other stuff too – some that he could use, some that he had no idea about. Sean clocked it all in a second, the way he used to sum up a row of parked cars and decide which one to come back and lift. Dave was going to want to know about all this.
But his first priority was to stabilize Wolston. He ran back to the unconscious corporal, breaking the seal on a bottle of antiseptic fluid as he went. He knelt and poured half of it out onto the bloodstained piece of shirt on Wolston’s back. If he just pulled the shirt off, then it might break any clots that had started to form in the wound, and blood would start to flow again. He needed to let it soak in and leave the clots intact.
He peeled the makeshift pad away when he judged it was safe, and poured the rest of the bottle straight on. Finally he pushed sterile gauze into the wound and tore open one of the bandage packs to wrap around Wolston’s upper half and hold the gauze in place.
Then, with another bottle and more gauze and bandages, he repeated the procedure on the entry wound. Last of all he tugged and pushed Wolston into the recovery position, mouth down and chin up so that his tongue wou
ldn’t fall back down his throat and choke him.
He stepped back to assess his work. This was as good as he could make it. He had nothing to replace the lost blood with. Unless he got help now, it would only be sheer willpower keeping Wolston alive. And pretty soon the platoon would have two fatalities. Unless he shifted.
‘Just going up top to make my report, mate,’ Sean said. Even passed out, the sound of a human voice might make a difference – give Wolston’s mind something to hold onto.
Sean ran back into the room to snap pictures of everything he could find, then turned and threw himself down the passage again.
Halfway along he realized that Ste and his buddies might not have gone very far. They could be waiting … He grimly pulled the pistol out of his trousers and racked back the topslide to push a round into the chamber, ready for firing.
Bright lights shone in his eyes and he staggered to a halt, squinting, hands shading his eyes. Oh, fucking hell, more of them? He braced in case he had to throw himself into another alcove.
‘Put your hands in the air!’
The voice was amplified and crackly. Spoken through a gas mask. So, not a terrorist. Sean’s hands shot up, still clutching the pistol. Behind the lights he could make out black-clad forms. Black overalls, black helmets, black gas masks, black Heckler & Kochs shining red laser beams right at him. Armed cops, he guessed. For the second time in two days, the good guys were treating him like a suspect. And he was waving a gun about. Shit, he couldn’t afford this delay.
‘Listen, I’m—’
‘Lie down on the ground! Move!’
Sean ground his teeth together, but obeyed. The concrete was cold and rough and gritty against his bare chest. Black legs and boots moved past his eyes.
‘There’s a gunshot wound back down the passage,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘He needs an ambulance …’
Someone kicked the gun away from him so that it slid across the concrete floor. Someone else grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back. Oh, fucking hell! He was gripped by a sudden terror that the cops would just haul him away, and do that thing where they just blank out everything you say that doesn’t fit the arrest pattern. Guy waving a gun, obviously guilty, so nod calmly and make out you’re noting it all down while he protests his innocence. And meanwhile Wolston would quietly bleed out …