by Andy McNab
He filled a bucket with water from an ancient pump in the yard, stripped off and washed as much of the caked blood and muck from his head and body as he could. He glanced quickly in the MPV’s wing-mirror. There wasn’t much he could do to disguise his damaged eye, but a beret, pulled low, covered most of the damage Delphine had done to his scalp.
Neatly wrapped bundles of euros, all used and of differing denominations, were stashed beneath the clothing. He extracted a few notes and slipped them into his pocket, shoved in his borrowed Puffa jacket and jeans, then closed and locked the case.
Marginally refreshed by the cold water and clean outfit, Laszlo slammed down the hatch and climbed into the driver’s seat. The engine fired first time. The thick hay on the barn floor rustled against the underside of the MPV as he put it into gear and drove outside.
He crossed the yard, stopped, got out and closed the gates behind him. Avoiding the village, he followed the narrow track past a field of sunflowers. He drove slowly, easing the vehicle across a succession of pits and potholes. Deep, muddy puddles from the recent rains had gathered at either side of the long, grass-topped spine between the wheel tracks.
Screened by the stalks of the dying sunflowers, the Peugeot was almost invisible, only the sound of its engine revealing its presence. The impact of a flying body against his windscreen and the crash as Tom started pounding a rock against the glass almost paralysed Laszlo with shock.
118
LASZLO STARED, SLACK-JAWED, at the scarred, bruised and blood-soaked apparition. But only for a moment.
Tom grabbed one of the roof rails with his left hand and pounded the windscreen with his right. Three spider webs had already formed on the glass, and a fourth was on its way. Laszlo accelerated and began to swerve from side to side, bouncing the MPV in and out of the potholes. Legs flailing across the bonnet, left arm stretched to breaking point, Tom still managed somehow to keep pounding with the rock.
Laszlo fish-tailed and lurched, stamping on the brakes, then accelerating again, but Tom kept his hold. As Laszlo spun the wheel in yet another desperate attempt to dislodge him, the Peugeot skidded off the track, into the field, mowing down ranks of sunflowers as it went.
Finally, Tom was thrown into the air and smashed against a wall of vegetation. He collapsed onto the ground as the Peugeot bottomed its suspension. Laszlo spun the wheel wildly from side to side and gunned the engine. The Peugeot’s tyres chewed into the earth and tossed a barrage of crushed sunflower stalks behind them.
Laszlo flung the vehicle into a spin, throwing up more stalks and earth, then lost control completely. The MPV slewed and eventually stalled in the midst of a circle of the flattened crop.
He quickly sparked up the ignition, turned the wheel towards the still prone body of the SAS man and pressed the accelerator pedal to the metal. The tyres spun furiously in the chewed-up soil and the car didn’t move. He tried again in a higher gear, barely touching the accelerator, but the wheels just buried themselves deeper and deeper in the soft ground.
Laszlo threw open the door, leaped out and began running towards his attacker.
At first Tom didn’t see Laszlo coming. But he could hear the desiccated crackle of the sunflower stalks as the South Ossetian forced his way across them.
His wounded leg was now so sore and swollen that he could barely put his weight on it, but he had to stand his ground.
A boot smashed into Tom’s thigh; the searing pain almost made him throw up as he fell back into the damp earth. Targeting the wound, Laszlo kicked Tom’s bandaged leg again and again, relentlessly. Then he moved to the rest of his body. Tom saw the other man’s eyes become totally lifeless. The body at his feet no longer belonged to a human being; it was nothing more than a target to beat into submission.
All Tom could do was fold himself into a tight ball, try to protect himself against the offensive.
When Tom opened his eyes again, he realized that – for the first time – he must have blacked out completely. The kicking had stopped. Laszlo stood above him, breathing heavily, spitting out the excess saliva his efforts had generated. His expression had changed. If Tom hadn’t known better, he might have mistaken it for something like humanity.
‘Tom . . .’ Laszlo’s chest heaved. ‘Tom, go home. Go home to your new family. You have killed my brother. You have killed many of my men. But this is not your fight . . .’ Laszlo spat another globule of mucus-tinged saliva onto the dark earth beside him. He took deeper and deeper breaths, trying to calm himself. ‘Go. Just go . . .’
Tom wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t sure he could, even if he wanted to. His knees were curled into his chest. ‘So you can still try to kill my country?’
‘Just as you would.’ Beads of sweat fell from Laszlo’s face as he leaned forward. He rested his hands on his thighs and inspected the damaged body below him. ‘People like us, we never give up. You know nothing of my past dealings with your countrymen. You see, Tom, they lie, they cheat and they kill. They kill with great brutality, to protect their interests. They feel superior now, of course. They tell the world that I am the evil one. But you will soon discover that these people are out of our league. So, just this one time, give up your fight with me and go home. Please go home.’
‘What people? Who are you talking about?’
Laszlo straightened his back. Tom could read the frustration on his ravaged face. ‘I am trying to save you from yourself. If you knew, they – not I – would kill you. Now go. If you do not take this opportunity to live, you will make me regret a kill for the very first time.’
Tom wasn’t giving anything up. His hands clutched his stomach, but his fingers felt their way to the handle of Sambor’s knife in the front pocket of his jeans.
Laszlo sighed. He scanned the ground nearby, caught sight of a fist-sized rock.
Tom aimed for Laszlo’s leg, the nearest part of his body, hoping to get him down onto the ground any way he could. He moved as fast as he could, but not fast enough. Laszlo blocked the knife thrust and pounded the rock down onto his shoulder. More out of desperation than anything else, Tom wrapped his arms around Laszlo’s ankles in a feeble rugby tackle, then pushed against his shins.
Laszlo lost his balance and went down, arms flailing but failing to break his fall. Tom drew back his right hand, launched himself forward and slammed the knife into Laszlo’s chest. He withdrew the blade and plunged it down again, this time into his stomach.
Laszlo screamed, but there was no fear or anger in his face. He just seemed to accept his fate. He watched, as if from a distance, as Tom used up his last dregs of strength to slam home the blade once more, burying it to the hilt between Laszlo’s third and fourth ribs, then collapsing on top of his suddenly still body.
As Laszlo’s blood began to pool among the sunflower stalks beneath them, Tom rolled over and wrenched himself into a sitting position. He dragged out the old man’s mobile and tapped in a number with numb, blood-soaked, slippery fingers. The unobtainable tone continued to mock him.
The setting sun glinted for a moment on something beneath the dead man’s sleeve. Keeping the phone clamped to his ear, willing Gavin to answer, he reclaimed his Omega from Laszlo’s wrist.
Epilogue
The sergeants’ mess at the Lines was packed for the joint memorial service, almost six months to the day since Gavin and Vatu had died. These things always seemed to be late. The challenge was to find a date when most of the squadron were in the UK, not spread across the planet.
It was a cold March night. The warm, beer-laden fumes inside the mess had misted the windows with condensation. The tables were already overflowing with empty glasses, bottles and cans, and more were being added all the time.
The SAS troopers were all smartly dressed in their number-two parade uniforms. Boots and medals gleamed. Wives and girlfriends were there as well, and children slalomed between everyone’s legs. Bryce’s kids had found a jar of cam cream and were busy daubing it over their faces and everything else the
y touched.
There were a number of other honoured guests, including Chief Constable Alderson and a couple of his police colleagues. A group of Eurostar personnel, led by the train driver and the head steward, had been given a trip to the Lines as a reward for their bravery. They rubbed shoulders uneasily with a sprinkling of spooks and ministry officials.
The civil servant called Clements looked like a fish out of water.
Tom watched the man who was huddled in a corner with Ashton. He was taking frequent surreptitious looks at his watch, as if he couldn’t wait for the ordeal to be over.
The bouncy castle had been deflated, folded and stashed behind a stack of chairs. The walls were hung with photographs of Vatu and Gavin from every phase of their service with the Regiment: with their families, in training, preparing for ops, off duty with their mates in various far-flung parts of the world. The more embarrassing the circumstances, the more likely they were to be included.
All their personal possessions – bits of kit, spare uniforms, no matter how old and threadbare – had been taken from their lockers and laid out on a row of tables set at right angles to the bar. Tom presided over the Dead Man’s Auction – an SAS tradition following the death of comrades that was as old as the Regiment itself.
As was the custom, each item was sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds given to the next of kin or squadron funds. The two dead men had already footed the bill for the evening. Every trooper left five hundred pounds in his will to be put behind the bar. The practice wasn’t macabre: it was part of the culture. If you worried about your mates on the squadron getting hurt and killed, you’d spend your life on anti-depressants.
Fuelled in part by the drink, but much more by the respect and affection they felt for Vatu and Gavin, they had been bidding well above market value for every lot on offer, and each exuberant bid seemed to trigger another rush for the bar and another round of drinks. As the two men’s clothes, even down to their underwear, were auctioned off, the successful bidders draped them over the top of their own uniforms.
The auction was now almost over. Tom was down to the last item. He picked up a cardboard box filled with CDs. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘All we have left is his music collection.’
‘Fifty quid!’ Jockey shouted.
‘Get off the grass.’ Tom laughed. ‘Fifty quid, you tight Scots git? Each CD’s worth more than that!’
‘Bollocks,’ Jockey yelled, from the midst of a backwards moon dance. ‘He wouldn’t know good music if it gave him a slap on the head.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone else bidding. So hand them over.’
‘No, I want more.’ Tom started fishing random CDs out of the box. ‘There’s some real quality here: Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, The Killers, Keane, and a bit of real quality, Lang Lang. I bought that for him myself.’
‘Lang Lang?’ Jockey raised his belligerent Glaswegian eyebrows. ‘You’re right, Tom, now I know that Lang Lang’s in there, I withdraw my earlier fifty-quid bid.’ He paused, timing his punchline to perfection. ‘Make that ten quid instead.’
‘Very droll.’ Tom waved the CD at him. ‘But for a tight-wad like you, you’re missing a trick. If you don’t like it, you can even sell it. It’s still in its wrapper.’
‘Why don’t you buy it yourself, then? You might as well – no one else is going to listen to that shite.’
Delphine got to her feet and waved a hand. The other rested lightly on her bump. ‘One hundred pounds.’
There was a stunned silence from around the room. Jockey picked up the CD and stared suspiciously through the shrink-wrap, as if it might conceal a winning lottery ticket. ‘Do women really go for this ying-yang shit?’
‘Well, it certainly worked on me,’ Delphine said. ‘Do you remember that first night, Tom, when we were . . .?’ She paused, leaving a roomful of people to wait for what would come next. ‘Well, you don’t want to hear about that, do you?’ She gave them the ghost of a smile. ‘But anyway, thanks to Lang Lang, here I am, two years later, still coming back for more.’
Jockey gave her a sceptical look. ‘It sounds like bullshit to me,’ he said. ‘But go on, just in case it’s true, I’ll bid one twenty-five.’
Bryce waited until Jockey started reaching for the box, then said, ‘Make that one fifty.’
Jockey wasn’t impressed. ‘Why the hell are you bidding for it? From the number of your ankle-biters running around this room, I’d say your seduction technique was working just fine.’ He paused. ‘All right, one seventy-five, then, and that’s my final offer.’
Keenan gave Delphine an appraising look. ‘In that case, I’ll bid two hundred.’
‘OK then, two fifty.’ Jockey was well in the mood.
‘I thought one seventy-five was going to be your last bid?’ Bryce said. He was taking a breath when a voice boomed from the back,
‘Five hundred!’
Before whoever it was could change his mind, Tom slammed his fist on the table. ‘Sold!’
As Tom scanned the crowd to identify the bidder, he saw that Ashton and Clements were still in their corner. They were arguing. The seed Gavin had planted in his head was growing. Something told him all wasn’t right about those two. Ashton’s story about Gavin planting a device in the Chinook didn’t ring true. If Gavin had planned to do that, why hadn’t he told Tom during their call? Gavin had said the sniper option was all he had. If he fucked up, they had a drama. No mention of a Plan B.
The auction over, the crowd hovered in small groups with their families, lining up for the curry buffet.
Tom watched Clements slip quietly out of the mess. If Ashton and Clements had been involved with Antonov and was responsible for Gavin’s death, Tom would find out.
Ashton walked over to Tom and Delphine as they congratulated Woolf on his purchase. Ashton raised his glass. ‘To Vatu and Gavin,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost two good men there.’ He was studying Tom’s expression. ‘You’ll miss Gavin, won’t you? You two were best mates.’
Sensing trouble, Bryce and Jockey joined the group.
Delphine laid a placatory hand on Tom’s arm. ‘We’ll never forget him, will we?’
Jockey took the CD from Woolf to inspect what might have been. ‘The poor little bugger will be well hacked off with you two when he’s old enough to realize what a crap name you’ve given him.’
Bryce smiled. ‘Gavin Buckingham, eh?’
Tom looked around the room. ‘God, I’m going to miss this.’
Delphine shot him a glance. ‘What do you mean you’ll miss this? You’re not really thinking—’
‘I’m not thinking about it,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve already decided.’
Delphine stared at him in disbelief.
‘Yeah, I’ll be giving it all up in, let’s see . . .’ he checked his Omega ‘. . . in exactly ten . . . years from now.’
He ducked as Delphine threw a mock punch at his head. Jockey started singing ‘The Eton Boating Song’, pretending to row a scull as he cracked on with his backwards moon dance, and one by one they all joined in. Only Ashton remained stone-faced. Tom had eye-to-eye with him and there was a connection, but it wasn’t anything to do with the joke, with the Regiment – with anything, except each man knowing that the other man knew.
Delphine suddenly gave a startled cry. There was a puzzled look on her face and then she broke into a dazzling smile. She took Tom’s hand and placed it against her bump. ‘Tom? I think it is time . . .’
About the Author
Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was ‘badged’ as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, ‘will remain in regimental history for ever’. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote a
bout his experiences in three books: the phenomenal bestseller Bravo Two Zero, Immediate Action and Seven Troop.
He is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. He is a patron of the Help for Heroes campaign.
www.andymcnab.co.uk
Also by Andy McNab
Novels featuring Nick Stone
REMOTE CONTROL
CRISIS FOUR
FIREWALL
LAST LIGHT
LIBERATION DAY
DARK WINTER
DEEP BLACK
AGGRESSOR
RECOIL
CROSSFIRE
BRUTE FORCE
EXIT WOUND
ZERO HOUR
DEAD CENTRE
Andy McNab with Kym Jordan
WAR TORN
Quick Reads
THE GREY MAN
LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER
Non-fiction
BRAVO TWO ZERO
IMMEDIATE ACTION
SEVEN TROOP
SPOKEN FROM THE FRONT
For more information on Andy McNab and his books,
see his website at www.andymcnab.co.uk
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RED NOTICE
A BANTAM BOOK: 9780593069486
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781448111121
First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Andy McNab 2012
Andy McNab has asserted his right under the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.