Silencer

by Andy McNab

  She touched his cheek and let out a sob.

  ‘Sophie, he knows he needs surgery. That kukri went in deep enough to sever his colon and fuck knows what else. I can stop the leaking and replace the fluids, but you need to make a quick decision. We have to get started if we’re going to get him safely to a hospital.’

  There was still no answer from her. She was gazing down at him.

  ‘Do you understand me? It’s finished. All the shit you’ve got here – it’s over. If you want him alive either you call an ambulance or we get the fuck out of here.’

  She ignored me. Their eyes were fixed on each other. Then he gave her a nod and she slowly stood up.

  ‘Thank fuck for that.’

  She turned and headed for the door, maybe to go downstairs and fetch some trauma care. I grabbed her and shoved her back into the chair. ‘Now you tell me where Katya is.’

  She went grey. ‘You don’t understand … They’ll kill us …’

  I pointed down at the ball of pain on the floor. His breathing was shallow and sharp. He was still painting the carpet tiles crimson. I gently kicked the sole of his foot. ‘Look, mate – tell her. I need to know about Katya – or we’re going nowhere and we’re all fucked.’

  He winced, sweat pouring off his face. But he managed a nod. ‘It doesn’t matter, love. What can he do?’

  Her face was a mixture of anger and fear as she stared at me hard. ‘They’ve taken her to Mexico.’

  ‘Why?’

  Her head shook slowly from side to side. ‘No more until he’s safe.’

  10

  ‘You got any whole blood or plasma replacement downstairs?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ She glared at me, like I’d asked her for her phone number.

  ‘Or volume fillers – you know, saline?’

  ‘I don’t know … You go and look.’

  I was staying with Bruce. He was my ticket out of here. I knelt alongside him again. ‘You know?’

  His face was etched with pain. Blood seeped between the fingers he had pressed over the wound site. He did the goldfish trick with his lips. ‘No blood … Ringer’s and giving sets … in the theatres …’

  I stood up and gripped Sophie. ‘Do you hear that? The theatres. Plastic bags, maybe bottles, of clear fluid. Saline solution, Ringer’s solution, whatever shit it says on the pack, get as much of it up here as you can. The giving sets – the tubes and shit that connect the bags to your arm – should be right alongside …’

  She turned to go.

  ‘And make sure you get the large cannulas, twenty to twenty-two gauge.’

  She stopped. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Just gather up everything you find within reach of the fluid bags. And bandages and gauze – the wider the better.’

  She turned on her heel. Her footsteps along the steel landing echoed around the building.

  As I turned back to Bruce, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the far side of the room. There was a gash on the right side of my forehead where I’d made contact with him. On the left were diamond-shaped indentations from the wire mesh. I looked so ridiculous I nearly smiled.

  ‘Mate, I’m going to have to move you. All right? I need your shirt off. You’re going to have to help me.’

  As I rolled him onto his back he did his best, between moans and grunts, to pull up his shirt. Blood leaked out of the five-centimetre slit in his gut, and so did a length of grey and glistening intestine.

  I started to undo the buttons. It was pointless fannying about: I couldn’t do anything until the shirt was off.

  ‘You got any clean clothes here?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What battalion were you in, Bruce?’

  ‘First …’

  It was a fair guess he was a Gurkha, and a proud one, running around with a commemorative kukri on a plaque. The 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles was based in the UK. ‘You’ve done the Iraq, Afghanistan shit?’

  He gave two half-nods; they were the best his body could muster.

  ‘I was in the Regiment, B Squadron. I was a Green Jacket before that. Did eighteen years.’

  He looked up. There’s always a bond between ex-squaddies, whatever the backdrop.

  ‘Mate, I’m not interested in you two. It’s Katya I’m after. All this shit …’ I bent his elbow. ‘Besides, I like you both …’

  ‘You’ve … got a fucking strange … way of showing it …’ His weak laugh turned into a rasping cough, which got louder with the pain of the sleeve finally leaving his arm. Little flecks of blood sprayed from his mouth.

  ‘So?’

  He clenched his jaw. ‘Not yet … brother … not yet …’

  Fair one. ‘OK, Bruce, this is the plan. You’re going to be in that front seat alongside her when we reach the border, just as you would normally. I’ll be in the back.’

  I managed to prise the sleeve off his hand. He lowered himself down onto the carpet again and lay back in a pool of his own blood.

  ‘And if you or Sophie try anything that compromises a quick entry into the Territories …’ I tapped the pistol grip sticking out of my jeans. ‘And if I don’t get what I need once we’re through, no hospital. All or nothing, OK?’

  I held up his chin so his eyes were locked on mine. I felt him nod.

  ‘So keep her under control. No flapping, no fucking up.’

  Bruce curled up again, exhausted, his hands cradling the pulsating eel that was still trying to escape from his stomach.

  11

  Sophie hurried back, arms overflowing. She’d taken me literally. Two-litre bags of Ringer’s solution, three or four different-gauged giving sets, bandages, all sorts, cascaded onto the carpet tiles.

  The moment she saw Bruce’s exposed wound she got hysterical.

  I jabbed a finger at her, making sure she gave me her total attention. ‘Open the bandages.’

  I looked down at Bruce. ‘You start getting a vein up.’

  He made a fist, pumping it as best he could.

  Sophie used her teeth on the wrapping of a 4cm bandage, never taking her eyes off her lover.

  I ripped away the protective plastic covering that kept the Ringer’s-solution bag sterile and peeled the giving set from its shrink-wrapped tray. I picked the largest cannula, 22-gauge, and unravelled the plastic tube. I checked the Ringer’s label. The solution was lactated. Good: if she’d brought plain, there wouldn’t have been time to send her back. The sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium chloride and sodium lactate were all in the same concentrations in which they occur in body fluids. Given intravenously, this stuff rapidly restored circulating blood volume in burns and trauma victims, and during surgery. It wasn’t as good as a ‘massive transfusion protocol’ – blood, and lots of it – but better than fuck-all.

  Sophie was ready.

  ‘Get that round his biceps – make it nice and tight. Bruce, you keep working that fist.’

  She talked to him soothingly, as if that shit ever worked.

  There was a clear plastic chamber a few inches from the end of the drip tube to regulate the flow of fluid. A small locking ball controlled the rate. But that wasn’t what I needed today. I twisted off the cap covering the plastic spike that I’d drive into the dark blue port at the base of the Ringer’s bag. There was also a white port, for injecting drugs into the solution, but that wasn’t going to be needed either.

  Sophie had wrapped enough bandage around Bruce’s arm to cut off the circulation once and for all, let alone keep a vein up. I grabbed one of her hands and got her to hold up the bag. ‘Keep it there.’

  I stabbed the spike into the blue port, twisted and pushed until it was past the seal, then undid the roller so it was fully open. I unscrewed the green cap at the end with the Luer connector, and watched the liquid run through, not too fussed about air bubbles in the line. The body can take that shit. The solution splashed onto Bruce’s chest before I closed down the roller ball and stopped the flow.

  ‘Sophi
e, look at me.’ I needed to keep her under my control: we still had a lot to do. ‘All right, put the bag on the floor and start opening all the gauze and bandages. Open the lot.’

  Bruce grimaced as I moved him into a better position but he knew it had to be done. I checked the veins on the underside of his right forearm. They were there somewhere, but none as pronounced as I would have liked. Maybe he’d lost too much blood, or maybe he was one of those people who had trouble giving them up.

  I probed around his arm with my forefinger and middle finger and soon felt a soft spongy pipe. Keeping the tips of my two fingers on the site so as not to lose the fucker, I grabbed the cannula with my free hand and shoved it into my mouth. I bit off the protective cover of the green cannula that gloved the needle. Pulling the skin towards his wrist to expose what there was of the vein, I pushed the needle into Bruce’s arm. I waited to feel the resistance of the vein wall, and the release once it had penetrated it, then stopped before it came out the other side. The clear hub at the back of the cannula flashed red as his blood started to force its way up the needle.

  All I had to do now was push the cannula deeper into the vein, keeping the needle in place as a guide until the cannula was fully open. I extracted the needle and threw it across the room. I didn’t want anyone getting any ideas about using it as a weapon. Blood poured from the exposed end of the cannula.

  Sophie stared in horror.

  I wasn’t surprised. The tourniquet should have been released before I inserted the needle, and the wound should have been dressed to stop any leakage but, fuck it, I might not have been able to get a vein up if he’d lost any more body fluid. And as long as the cannula was where it needed to be, that was all that mattered.

  ‘Sophie, open up that bandage.’

  I left them to it.

  Grabbing a bag of Ringer’s, I scrabbled over to the kukri, cut away the blue port and used the liquid to clean his wound. Bruce was lying on his side, facing away from her, so she couldn’t see the full extent of the damage. I squirted some more Ringer’s over his arm and across his stomach to get a better look at what I was going to dress – and because I needed him looking as normal as possible at the border. I ended up emptying the bag.

  I lifted Bruce carefully into a sitting position with Sophie supporting him from behind. I grabbed a fistful of gauze and covered the wound site, then wrapped the bandage around his stomach. You can’t apply much pressure to a gut wound, but at least it kept everything in place. He sat there, his back against the chair, a mess of blood, Ringer’s and discarded dressing wrappers, but he was as stable as I could manage once I’d twisted the giving-set line onto the cannula and fully opened the roller-ball valve.

  ‘Sophie, go and get shirts, sweatshirts – anything big and bulky.’

  She wanted to stay.

  ‘Go.’

  She gave Bruce another lingering look and turned away.

  I dumped the Ringer’s on the back of the chair. She hadn’t brought any surgical tape, so I used a strip of bandage to secure the line and cannula to his arm to stop it getting pulled out when we moved.

  He just sat there in a daze. I wasn’t sure if he was taking the pain or swimming in and out of consciousness.

  ‘Bruce, look at me.’

  He did so, but his pupils were dilated, not reacting to the light.

  ‘Mate, you know this is only volume filler, don’t you? You’re still going to need whole blood …’

  He nodded.

  ‘So no fucking about at the border, OK?’

  He looked like he might have laughed, had it not hurt so much. Sophie came back with two sweatshirts – a red Nike and a blue Lonsdale. I pulled one on and helped Bruce into the other. The IV line ran down his arm and emerged from his right cuff.

  Sophie hopped from one foot to the other. ‘Let’s go. Come on, let’s go.’

  I shook my head and stared her straight in the eye. ‘No, Sophie. First tell me where Katya is.’

  If I’d been depending on her, I wouldn’t have rated my chances of getting into the Territories. I had to know now, before we tried and failed. At least if it all went to rat-shit and I got away, I’d know where to aim for.

  12

  ‘No,’ she snarled. ‘He’s in agony. We have to go now.’

  She bent to help him up, but only made things worse for him.

  I didn’t budge. ‘Where in Mexico? Who with? Who’s responsible for this shit? The sooner you tell me, the sooner we get out of here.’

  Bruce’s breathing was getting shallower. Sophie brushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead. Her head jerked up. ‘For God’s sake, at least let him have some painkillers …’

  I moved back towards them. ‘He’s got to take the pain. Anything I give him now will affect what they can give him in hospital. So the sooner we get there, the sooner he waves the pain goodbye.’

  I crouched down at their level. ‘Mate, there’s no time to fuck about. You really need help.’

  He nodded, then slowly turned his head to her and did the same.

  She took a deep breath. The palms of her hands faced the ground, like she was doing some kind of calming exercise. ‘OK … OK … She went with them because you and your girlfriend were going to be hurt if she didn’t. She did it for you.’

  ‘With “them”? Who are they?’

  She looked at me like I should know this stuff. ‘The people who paid for all this.’ She gestured around us.

  ‘Who?’

  She hesitated. ‘We just know the guy they call El Peregrino. The Pilgrim.’

  ‘Pilgrim? What the fuck is that about?’

  ‘Drugs money. What else would fund something like this? HS-fucking-BC? The Pilgrim is diversifying. More cash, less risk.’

  She sighed. ‘Look, I don’t know how he knew she was in Moscow. I don’t know why he wants her in Mexico. I just know we’re fucked as well, now. There are no second chances with these people. They don’t do failure …’

  She put her arms around Bruce and held his head against her chest. Strangely, she seemed a whole lot calmer now. At least she was thinking ahead instead of just flapping.

  ‘Can we go now? Please.’

  I checked her bag for any other weapons. ‘You got passports and all that shit in here?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘We’d better get a fucking move on then.’

  I leaned down to help her lift Bruce. ‘Mate, you’re going to have to switch on here. Start using your legs.’

  Sophie grabbed her bag, then hooked a hand under his other armpit. Between us we managed to haul him to his feet.

  The three of us shuffled out of the room and along the landing. The stairs he had to do mainly himself. I could see the pain in his every movement, but we were fresh out of choices.

  As we reached the ground, we heard muffled shouts. A loud metallic clang echoed around the compound. Someone was pounding the outside of the roller-shutter.

  We stopped. The shutter got thumped again.

  Sophie looked at her watch. ‘They’re back.’

  I couldn’t tell if she thought it was a good or bad thing. I eased Bruce towards the MPV but she stayed where she was.

  ‘You’ve got a choice, Sophie. But let me tell you right now, I’m not going quietly.’

  We reached the Toyota and I levered Bruce into the front seat. ‘What do you think?’

  He did his goldfish trick again. His lips moved, but nothing came out. I leaned in closer to him, and this time I picked up a ragged whisper. ‘We’ve got to disappear … The suit … he’s not a … He’s … Peregrino’s man on the ground …’

  Of course he was. The Pilgrim would need eyes and ears in-country. He wasn’t just going to be Sophie and Bruce’s fairy godfather. He’d want to grip them too.

  Sophie was still frozen to the spot.

  ‘The auto-jets, mate – where are the auto-jets?’ I mimed a stabbing motion, as if that was going to help.

  He grunted. ‘Glass cabinet … Th
eatre … One …’

  I moved back towards Sophie as the banging on the shutter got louder and angrier.

  ‘Right, you listen in.’ I pointed to the red cut-off switch on the junction box to the right of the entrance. ‘See that thing? Turn it back on. Yell at them. Tell them there was a power cut. Say you have a problem, and you’re trying to sort it out. Say that Bruce has had an accident in Theatre One, that you need their help. And then take them through that rear corridor, past the kitchen. You got that?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I don’t care how you do it but they must go down that corridor.’

  Her gaze was transfixed by the steel plates of the shutter rattling and rippling under the onslaught.

  I took her head in my hands and turned it so my eyes could drill into hers. ‘Do – you – under – stand?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK.’

  I nipped back to the MPV and reclined Bruce’s seat. ‘Keep your head down, mate. We’ll be leaving soon. But right now keep out of sight.’

  I slammed the door and shepherded Sophie towards the shutter. ‘Go, go. Shout. Tell them you’re coming.’

  I legged it to the rear Portakabins as fast as I could.

  13

  The chunky blue plastic cylinders lay like torpedoes in a silo, rubber-covered buttons at one end and red plastic protective caps over the needles at the other. There were six of them in a row. I needed only two.

  I piled into the kitchen as Sophie went into yelling mode and the van roared into the warehouse. I closed the door but didn’t engage the handle lock, then moved to the hinged side to allow myself a view through the glass panel along the corridor towards Theatre One.

  I gulped in deep breaths, trying to clear my head for what was coming. Everything started to slow. Sophie was still gobbing off, her voice getting louder as she guided them into the building. I checked the revolver in my jeans, making sure the grip was pointing to the right.

  The weapon would be my last resort. It would mean using rounds I might need at the border. But any threat I made with it had to be credible. So, fuck it, if there was a drama, the only option I had was to go noisy and take my chances.