by Andy McNab
I’d just dropped down into two-wheel to try to eke out the fuel when the headlights picked out a static vehicle at the roadside. It was a rusting, lime-green Lada. The bonnet was up.
‘Thank you, God.’ Charlie reached down and pulled the RPK from the foot well.
I gripped the wheel. ‘Come on, mate, I’ve got to get you home.’
‘Fuck that, lad. We got the first bastard, now let’s finish the job.’
‘What’s the point? He had at least an hour’s head start. He might be in another vehicle by now, and halfway to Turkey.’
‘So what? We check this out, and catch up with him then. I’m going for it. You in?’
As if I was going to leave him and drive on.
I stopped the Toyota and stuck it into first gear, ready to back him. As he climbed out, he pushed the safety lever on the left of the RPK down to the first click, single shot.
He walked around to the back of the Taliwagon, the big RPK in his shoulder, bipod folded up along the barrel.
Once he was level with me, we were ready.
‘Come on then, let’s do it.’
I lifted the clutch and crept forward as he limped beside me, using the wagon as cover. Why he’d got out, I didn’t know. Then it dawned on me. He was enjoying this. He was doing it not only to get Bastard; he was doing it for himself. It was the last chance he’d ever have to do some soldiering, the thing that he was born for.
He stopped short of the Lada and so did I. I kept low in the seat. Bastard still had that Desert Eagle.
Charlie’s eyes were fixed on the treeline, looking for trouble. ‘Stay here, I’ll check for sign.’
He hobbled forward, RPK at the ready.
He didn’t go right up to the car; just circled it, checking the mud for tracks.
He tried the driver’s door. The Lada was unlocked.
Charlie took a quick look inside, then moved slowly up the road, still casting around for sign.
Four or five metres ahead of the Lada, he turned and gave me a thumbs-up.
I rolled towards him and stopped.
He stuck his head through the passenger window. ‘Flat shoes. Leading into the treeline.’ He spoke very quietly, as if Bastard was within earshot. ‘He can’t have gone far; you saw how useless he was. We’ve got the fucker.’
He hobbled off without waiting to see if I was coming.
I killed the engine, grabbed the keys and got out.
9
We moved straight into the trees and started climbing.
Charlie was soon in trouble. I could hear his laboured breathing. He was carrying his injured ankle at a very unnatural angle.
I moved alongside him and put my mouth to his ear. ‘Let’s just do it until we can’t see any more, OK? He could be anywhere.’
It wasn’t as if there was any ground sign we could follow. The floor was covered with pine needles. He stopped and listened, mouth open, his head cocked to the left so his right ear faced dead ahead.
Finding our way back to the wagon again wouldn’t be hard, even in the dark. All we’d have to do was drop downhill until we hit the road.
The rain battered its way through the canopy of firs, and the wind howled.
Charlie set off.
I stayed where I was. I’d be his ears while he moved about five paces ahead.
I drew level with him and he set off again. I wouldn’t move beyond him. I didn’t have a weapon. He was going to be front man. It was the way he wanted it.
He took his time, weapon in the shoulder, forty-five degrees down but ready to swing up, safety still off all the way down to the second click.
He stopped after just one pace. It looked like his ankle had finally packed in on him. He crouched against a tree, looking up the hill.
I spoke into his ear. ‘I’m getting knackered myself, mate. There’s no way that fat bastard’s going to climb any higher.’
Charlie pointed left, parallel to the road. His hand was shaking. He gave me a thumbs-up and adjusted the RPK, ready to move again.
I grabbed an arm before he could do so. ‘You want me to take point?’
He held up a hand and we both watched it shake.
‘Nah,’ he said simply. ‘He owes me, lad. And not just for a fucking bacon sandwich.’
He hobbled four paces to the left, weapon in the shoulder, following the contour of the slope.
I moved up to him again, keeping a bit of distance so our joint mass didn’t present too easy a target.
He was silent for another few seconds, then dropped down into a waist-deep depression carved out by years of running water from the hilltop.
He froze almost immediately, reacting to a rustling noise in the dead ground.
There was a loud shout. ‘Fuck you!’
Then a heavy-calibre shot and a falling body.
Charlie was down.
10
I ran into the dip.
Charlie wasn’t moving, but Bastard was. He was out of sight, but I could hear him pushing deeper into the pines.
I grabbed the RPK and squeezed the bipod legs together to release them. I gave them a tug as I got to the top of the rise and they sprang apart. The barrel supported, I dropped to the ground, pushed safety fully down, and squeezed off a series of short sharp bursts in the direction of the noise. My ears were ringing when I stopped. Smoke curled from the muzzle.
No screams, no begging. Fuck him. I scrambled back down to where Charlie lay on his back in the mud and pine needles, so still he could have been sleeping. I knelt over him and cradled his head, and immediately felt warm liquid on my hands. He was making an ominous, slurping noise each time he drew breath.
I unzipped his Gore-Tex and tore at the hole in his shirt. Blood trickled down my hands. He had a sucking wound. The .357 round had drilled a hole in his chest, just below his right nipple. As he breathed in, oxygen had rushed to fill the vacuum in his thoracic cavity, and the pressure had collapsed his lungs. As he breathed out, air and blood were forced out like air and water from a whale’s blowhole.
‘Nearly stepped on the fucker . . .’ Charlie coughed blood. ‘I couldn’t pull the trigger, Nick . . .’ He tried to laugh. ‘Fucking disco hands . . .’
His body twitched. He was in agony, but the crazy thing was, he was smiling.
But if he was talking, he was breathing – that was all that mattered.
I grabbed his hand and placed it over the entry site. ‘Plug it, mate.’
He nodded. He wasn’t that out of it yet; he understood what needed to be done. With his chest airtight, his lungs would inflate and normal breathing could resume.
‘Got to check for exit wounds, mate. It’s going to hurt.’
I rolled him onto his side, but there wasn’t so much as a scratch on his back. The round must still be in him. A heavy round like that could only have been stopped by bone – maybe his shoulder blade – but a fracture was the least of his problems. We both knew he was in deep trouble.
Charlie began to groan. ‘How’s it look? How’s it look?’
Over and over.
He’d be going into shock soon. I had to act fast, but what could I do? He needed fluids, he needed a chest drain, he needed the wound sealed; he needed the whole fucking cast of ER up here.
He groaned again.
Still no need to worry about his airway.
His hand had fallen from his chest. I put the heel of my mine over the hole to keep the seal. He coughed again, and the effort sent him into spasms of pain.
‘How’s it look? How’s it look?’
His face contorted – another good sign. He could still feel it, his senses hadn’t deserted him.
I needed to get him down to the wagon, and I needed to keep the seal while I did so. I’d have to drive back to the village. The guy we’d lifted the RPK from had been standing in the doorway of what looked like a medical station – and the BDUs would have brought trauma packs.
We’d be arrested, but so what? I’d said I’d get the old fucker home, and I woul
d.
‘How’s it look?’
‘Shut up, and think life.’
There was nothing up here I could use to keep the seal, apart from my hand. How the fuck was I going to do that while I got him down the hill?
Bastard would be heading there too. He knew we hadn’t come here by bus. But he wasn’t going anywhere fast. I’d deal with him once Charlie was safe.
I looked down at Charlie’s face. It was swelling like a football.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
I lifted my hand.
There was a hiss, like air escaping from the valve of a car tyre, and a geyser of blood mist.
The round had certainly gone through one of his lungs, maybe both. Oxygen was being released into the chest cavity through any wounds. With me holding the seal, it had nowhere to go. The pressure in his chest had built so much that when he tried to breathe in, his lungs and heart had no way to expand.
I pulled him over onto his right side; blood that had pooled inside the lung poured out like milk from an overturned bottle.
I rolled him back and sealed the hole again.
He was losing consciousness.
11
I had to keep trying. ‘It’s OK, you can talk to me again, mate.’
There was no response. ‘Oi, come on, speak to me, you old twat!’ I pulled his sideburns. Still no response.
I lifted his eyelid.
So little dilation I could scarcely see it.
His breathing had become very rapid and shallow. His heart was working overtime to circulate what fluid was left around his body. There’d be more blood in his chest cavity now, pooling and killing him.
I listened to his breathing. ‘Show me you hear me, mate . . . Show me . . .’
There was no reply.
‘I’m going to move you, mate . . . not long now before we’re out of here. Soon be on a plane, be back in Brisbane . . . OK, OK? Give me a sign, mate, show me you’re alive.’
Nothing.
I lifted a lid, felt for a pulse.
None of those either.
I touched his face; the smile was still there. It was sign enough for me.
‘Won’t be long, you old fucker. Back soon.’
I picked up the RPK and lunged down the hill. I pulled off the mag as I ran, and pushed down. About ten left. I flicked safety to the first click. Every round had to count.
I checked left at the treeline, towards the wagons.
About 100 away, Bastard swayed from side to side as he stumbled along the road, arms flailing in an effort to maintain his balance.
Keeping in the trees, I followed.
He fell, and floundered for a moment like an upturned turtle.
I slowed almost to a walk, scanning ahead for a decent firing position.
He finally reached the Taliwagon. I watched him head for the driver’s door and lean inside.
I put the weapon on the ground again, bipod in place, and eased myself down behind it.
The iron sights were on battle setting: 300 metres.
I felt surprisingly calm as I brought the butt into my shoulder, closed my left eye and took aim.
As I’d assumed, he was no big-time hot-wire man. He emerged from the cab and kicked the side panel in frustration before moving back to the Lada. A second or two later the engine turned over, but that was all it did.
Wet spark plugs. It must have been what had stopped him in the first place, and nothing had changed.
He persisted, but the battery was draining and it turned over slower and slower.
The wind took the sound and carried it away into the trees, but I watched him screaming out, punching the steering wheel with rage.
He climbed out and started towards the pipeline.
It didn’t matter what his plans were; they weren’t going to happen.
My eyes focused on his body mass. Left eye closed, I aimed low, into his gut.
I took first pressure on the trigger; breathed in, held it.
The foresight was sharp and Bastard was blurred.
Perfect.
I squeezed second pressure.
The weapon jolted in my shoulder and Bastard went down.
There was no movement at first, then his legs started to scrabble in the mud.
I got up. Weapon in the shoulder, bipod down, I moved towards him.
He was beginning to crawl over the pipeline scar, instinct dragging him away from danger. I doubted he even knew he was doing it.
He saw me coming.
He stopped, and curled on his side in the middle of the scar.
Dark, deoxygenated blood oozed from his gut and ran down the shiny chrome of the Desert
Eagle in his belt.
Weapon in the shoulder, eyes on that .357.
I was only a couple of metres away when he held up a hand. He’d been saving his breath until he absolutely needed to speak.
‘Nick, I’ll split my half million with you . . . Chuck got his half mill . . .’
I just let him fill the gaps.
‘I’m sorry about the cemetery thing, but I’d taken half his cash, man . . . I had to tidy up . . . Loose ends . . .’
His hand was still up, but more in supplication now than self-protection. ‘You already got two-fifty, right? You said you’d split it down the middle. So I’ll give you another two-fifty . . . That puts you ahead of us both . . .’
I heard the rattle of heli rotors in the distance. Bastard heard them too.
‘Hey, Nick, tell you what – I’ll give you it all . . . Get me back to Istanbul, I’ll arrange the transfer. Come on, man.’
Hand still in the air, he pointed to his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll even give you the tape back. You’re no fool, Nick. You know it’s a good deal. Think about it. Chuck’s gone. You gotta think of yourself now.’
This guy never gave up, did he?
I raised the RPK.
‘Don’t call him Chuck.’
I watched his face relax.
‘Fuck you.’ His hand dropped and went for Koba’s weapon.
I pulled the trigger.
No need to check his pulse.
I dropped the RPK and turned and ran back into the treeline. I had to find Charlie again before it was too dark.
I needed to.
I’d promised Hazel I’d bring him home.
EPILOGUE
The farm
Three weeks later
It had been a simple funeral.
Hazel and Julie had thrown themselves into organizing every detail, even down to hiring the mini-JCB so Alan could scoop out Charlie’s grave. I guessed it held the demons at bay for a while, kept the two of them in their bubble just a little bit longer.
There’d been no priest in charge yesterday, and no formal prayers. We all just stood round the coffin next to the hole, and everybody said their piece; then we lowered him into the ground, Hazel and Julie on one set of ropes, Alan and me on the other.
The whole thing was done economy, just the way a tight-arsed Yorkshireman would have wanted it. Silky was in charge of music. A couple of Charlie’s favourite Abba songs blared out from the camper van nearby, and I wondered if his disco hands were behaving themselves when Boney M’s ‘Brown Girl In The Ring’ followed shortly afterwards. That was when Hazel finally stopped holding herself together. The grandkids couldn’t understand. They thought it was her favourite song.
Alan did the catering. The food was OK, but his kids said their dad’s barbecue wasn’t a patch on Granddad’s.
Later that night, Alan had chucked in a DVD for them, but we’d all watched. We felt too numb to do much else, and ninety minutes of Shrek was as surreal a way as any of not brooding about absent friends.
By the time Alan and Hazel were putting them to bed, I was drained. I sat with Silky, watching disembodied images float across the screen, picking up the odd sentence here and there. It was current affairs time of night; President Bush had stopped by in Georgia on his way back from the VE celebrations in Moscow. The event ha
d been covered for CNN by a local reporter, ‘Emmy-nominated Nana Onani’.
I Googled her on Charlie’s ageing PC before we turned in. The 60 Minutes special had gone out; names had been named. Seismic changes were promised, but of course none had yet taken place. Two guys had been shifted sideways, and the other four had retired to their dachas to spend more time with their families.
Akaki threw up a few results, but nowhere near as many as Zurab Bazgadze. His state funeral had been a bit more lavish than Charlie’s. I searched everywhere, but Jim D. ‘Call Me Buster’ Bastendorf didn’t raise a dickie bird.
Now I was taking a final walk-past with Hazel. The plot was set among a clump of gum trees, with a low white fence round it. She’d thought it all out; made sure there’d be room for her as well, in due course.
It was last light and the sun was really low. Dust kicked up by the horses drifted across a blood-red skyline.
I started telling her how he’d been thinking of coming home when I caught up with him. ‘But something stopped him, Hazel. I think I understand. I sort of missed it, too. You know, when you’ve done something for so long, it feels sort of . . . comfortable. I felt more at home out there with him than I had for ages. I’m sorry; I didn’t try hard enough to persuade him to bin it. I was selfish. I wanted to go along as shotgun.’
She smiled at me and shook her head. ‘I knew the silly bugger wanted to die with his boots on. We’ve been together since we were at school. I knew him better than he knew himself. He thought he’d kept it hidden . . .’
She stopped to look out across the paddock at the dark silhouettes of the horses.
‘Nick, I always understood what was going on in that thick head of his, and was prepared to live with it . . . If I couldn’t make him stop, I wanted him concentrating on whatever he’d got himself involved with instead of worrying about me. That way he would stand a chance of coming home safe.’ She smiled again as she headed towards the house. ‘It worked pretty well for thirty years.’
She tucked her arm in mine. ‘I know he wanted to do the right thing – you know, make sure me and the family were OK. But you know what, Nick? I’d trade it all for just a few more minutes with him.’