by Andy McNab
The van stopped and the side door opened. Yulia had a self-satisfied look on her face and was just about to get into the van when she witnessed the bloodbath. Her face dropped its happy and she crumpled. Some people lose control of their body when they see blood. It’s a protection mechanism. Blood means death, maybe yours, so pretend you’re already dead. One of the Wolves might do the same if they watched a needle penetrate their skin.
Foma was out of the van in a flash as Yulia stumbled backwards and fell to the tarmac. He picked her up and threw her aboard for 007 to grab. She almost got dragged over Phoenix and Tailgate as they leant over the body, still working on her.
Foma slid the door and we were quickly on our way once more. 007 had gone back to his day job, weapon in hand and totally focused on me. He nodded over to the back of the van for a recovering Yulia to take Tailgate’s coveted place.
Phoenix had both hands over the woman’s sternum and half over Tailgate’s blood-drenched fist, which provided the seal. He kept straight arms and gave short, sharp pumps.
We turned right on the main, towards Penzance, and the VW raced through the gears in an effort to get up speed and make distance.
There wasn’t much the two of them could do for the woman but plug the holes to stop her losing any more circulating body fluid and seal her chest cavity, fill her lungs, and squash her heart so it drove the oxygenated blood around her, keeping her alive.
Phoenix did about twenty pumps, then checked her carotid artery with his bloodstained fingers. Maybe there was a pulse, maybe there wasn’t. His face gave nothing away. He was totally focused on what he was doing.
Checking that Tailgate’s hand was in still in position over the chest wound, he spat out a mouthful of the woman’s blood and mucus that he had collected while inflating her chest, took a deep breath and exhaled into her once more, checking the chest for inflation.
All the while, Yulia was curled up in a ball with her hair covering her face, trying hard to cut out the world around her. She wasn’t a coal-face worker.
Phoenix spat out yet more blood and pumped his patient’s heart once more. The failing body bent under the force of his weight rapidly squashing her heart. He checked her carotid again and I still couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But then, as he sat back on his arse, his spine against the sliding door, and Tailgate released his hands from the wounds and sat back on a bloodstained mat, I didn’t need to.
But it wasn’t the end of his world. He kicked at the weapons bag and told Tailgate to start getting them out.
45
Phoenix grabbed Yulia’s attention as he checked the mag was secure on his Vector. They weren’t going to let anything stop them.
‘We are still going home. It’s all good.’
007 didn’t think so and let everyone know it. ‘I told you all we should have killed him. There wouldn’t have been any of this. He nearly compromised us.’ He pointed down at me and kicked the side of the board. The shockwave fired straight into my jaw. I’d been dribbling because of the pain of swallowing, and a mouthful of saliva gushed down my chin. At least, I consoled myself, I was still alive and they didn’t know I’d been after Yulia.
The board got another kick and my jaw felt like it had shattered. Phoenix cut in: ‘No more.’ His eyes burned into 007’s. He was pissed off with him for trying to deflect the blame onto me.
007 sat back on the bags.
Phoenix gave him a second or two to settle, then his tone went back to professional. ‘You are not angry with him, you are angry with yourself. You were careless enough to let him think he had a chance – and you nearly got killed because of it.’
He nodded down at the woman, her head now flopped to the side, eyes half closed. Her mouth was still open from the CPR and the blood around her lips had almost dried. ‘So you must accept your mistake and your part in this situation. Learn by it, and make sure it never happens again. Do you understand?’
I flicked my eyes up to see 007 give the most reluctant of nods.
Tailgate knew he was next on the list and readied himself for whatever was coming his way. He would find it hard to justify what he had done.
Phoenix’s face was expressionless. ‘The mission. Does this affect it?’ He gestured at the body as we rumbled over tarmac at speed – but not too fast: Phoenix wanted ‘no speeding, no violations’.
We were on a straight road and going for it. ‘I don’t know yet, but it’s a problem, a bigger problem than him. This is normal people. You understand that, don’t you?’
Tailgate nodded. ‘I saw movement. What if she had run? What if—’
Phoenix’s raised hand stopped the waffle. ‘You have a responsibility to us, to keep us safe. Just like we have to you but you overreacted. Just one breath – that’s all it would have taken – and you would have had time to think. This isn’t a fight that we’re involved in. It’s gentler than that. And now …’ he picked up the woman’s hand, covered with blood, to show Tailgate her wedding and engagement rings, the gold worn with age, ‘… a wife, a mother, maybe a grandmother. They will never know where she is, what has happened to her. They will never know if she is alive and, not knowing, they will eventually hope she is dead rather than suffering. But until then they will move the earth to find her. That is why we have a problem.’
Even if any of this shit-storm had been captured on the caravan site’s CCTV, assuming there was any on the buildings, it wasn’t going to help her family get any satisfaction. It wouldn’t matter to them if they saw her shot or not. They would spend the rest of their days wondering why she’d taken a couple of rounds. Otherwise they would ask themselves if she’d been kidnapped, or had just disappeared. They would never find the answer.
‘You have made this a problem, not her or him.’ He nodded at me as he let her hand drop to the floor. ‘Weapons are only as good as the brain firing them. Your brain.’ He tapped his forehead, leaving red fingermarks behind. ‘Use it.’
He let the van rumble along the tarmac in silence for a while as 007 and Tailgate digested the clever bollocking they’d just received.
I could see that Tailgate wasn’t buying it, but he had to suck it up.
Phoenix trying to save her had had nothing to do with making the situation less dangerous for them. If she had survived, it would have been more of a problem: what would have happened to her in Belarus? Problems like her always had to be cleaned up. But Phoenix wasn’t about killing, not today, anyway. He was about the mission, getting the job done. It wasn’t that Phoenix thought naturally in black and white: it was simply because he had to.
All this practical thinking still couldn’t absolve me of guilt. 007 was right: if I hadn’t gone for it at the caravan site, all this shit wouldn’t have happened. I’d taken a chance and fucked up. The result was now lying next to me. Collateral damage. We’d both have to live with it and I was sure this wasn’t his first experience of a third-party fuck-up. It certainly wasn’t mine, but I hoped it would be my last.
007 caught my eye and I immediately looked away, my face as passive as I could make it. I didn’t want anything to indicate that I knew what was going on. I heard a loud snort, and a second later felt the contents of his sinuses land on the back of my head.
‘Okay, there will be no more of it.’
Phoenix checked his watch again. Precious time had been lost. ‘We’ve got to make the pick-up, and remember – we’re doing that in daylight. It will be difficult, but we still have the mission to complete. And that includes this man going home with us.’
007 gazed down at me with clear plans in his head for when we arrived back in Belarus, but Phoenix had one more bit of his gripping-the-lads talk. ‘If we encounter any problems before pick-up, only I will say if you put this man to the ground. Understand?’
There were reluctant nods from Tailgate and 007 but I wasn’t sure their hearts were in it. As far as they were concerned, the only reason they’d received their bollocking was because of my actions.
As for Yulia, her response was to remain curled up in a corner and keep facing the side panel to avoid any chance of seeing the blood now smeared about the van, like the floor of an abattoir. She was way out of all her comfort zones and Phoenix knew it. The commander put up a hand to attract her attention, along with a half-smile. ‘We’ll be home soon. All is good.’
She didn’t look at him but her answer was surprisingly clear. ‘I know.’
She might not like blood but she could certainly keep a grip of herself.
I closed my eyes. This lot might be going home soon, but it wasn’t going to be with me, and it certainly wasn’t going to be with Yulia.
It was going to be Shit or Bust, The Sequel very soon.
46
Phoenix had a lot on his plate, over and beyond the two problems on the floor behind him. He had to get all of the team to the pick-up point and make sure they were exfiltrated. Nothing else mattered.
The driver kept his foot down for the next ten minutes to get us out of the immediate area, but I knew he’d still be keeping it legal.
Phoenix was at the hatch, talking non-stop to the two in front, probably reminding them to check their mirrors and flanks, and as much of the sky as they could see. He couldn’t see what they could, so he had to trust their input. It would have been easier for him to be up front, but that wasn’t his job. Phoenix needed to be exactly where he was, able to communicate with whoever was on the end of that laptop. He had to trust his team. If the two up front said they were possibly being followed, that was a lot different from saying they were being followed. Different actions would be taken for different terminology – and getting it wrong would entail even more of the third party getting killed. One was enough. If the two up front said they were being followed, Phoenix would have to take action: they were so close to the pick-up point now. He would attack them. He had to stop it there and then before continuing to the pick-up and that was why all the weapons were out of their bags.
If the two up front were wrong and it was just a possible, not a definite follow, it didn’t mean they were thinking over-aggressively, like Tailgate, or being slack, like 007. It meant they had to make a call. If they got it wrong, even more real people would be killed.
This business wasn’t a science and that meant I might also join any collateral damage. If the police tried to stop us, I was one problem they could get rid of straight away, before focusing on the police, hosing them down and keeping on moving.
In his shoes, I wouldn’t have hesitated in dropping me before taking down the local security if I had to get the team to a pick-up.
Phoenix unzipped one of the Ripcurls and retrieved a laptop, the antenna and a neatly coiled bundle of cables. Fuck knew how long we’d been driving. As far as I could tell we were still travelling in the same direction. We’d turned right out of the caravan site and were heading generally east, I was sure of that, towards the rest of the UK. Not that it really mattered: it just made me feel a little better that I knew something else the rest of them thought I didn’t.
Phoenix didn’t bother getting help from Yulia as he unfurled the cables. The geek was still curled up in a ball in her own little world, probably hoping it would all go away and that the horrible smell of blood and flesh would stop attacking her nostrils. In any event, for Phoenix, there was shit on. It would take time to explain what he wanted doing, so he might as well get on with it himself.
He linked the antenna lead into the laptop and passed it through the hatch to the front crew to attach to what I presumed was a mount on the dash or windscreen. He was soon tapping away and waiting for replies, maybe from the embassy. Whatever was going on, his bloodied fingers were busy. He was probably telling them I was still here and alive, but there was now a dead woman lying next to me: the killing might have been captured on CCTV, or there might be a witness, or the woman’s family would raise the alarm very soon and call the police because she’d gone for a shower and not come back. Within a couple of hours something would be happening, if it wasn’t already.
The VW braked hard and took a sudden sharp left. Our bodies lurched, and one of the boards banged into the side of my face, right on the jaw joint.
I wondered if we were moving off the main because we were being followed and were getting ready to take down the target, but Phoenix was happy. ‘Good, good – go!’ He checked his watch and I saw it for the first time: a Luminox. The military loved them because the dials’ markers were gaslit, so you could get an instant view of the time in the dark without the delay you experienced when you were looking at traditional luminous paint. So we weren’t turning off because of a follow. It just made sense to quit the main once we’d made that initial distance, and put in some angles. If we’d been seen on CCTV or by a witness, the police would have the mains marked up. Not that there were many police in Cornwall, I was sure, but there might be cameras on the mains. On the downside, it meant a longer journey to wherever the pick-up point was, and the pressure would be on. That was good. They might start cutting corners and that might, just might, open up an opportunity for me.
The suppressed barrel dug into the side of my neck as we bounced around another corner, the driver churning up and down the gears to keep the wheels turning as fast as they could go. I checked the condition of the Vector’s safety just to make sure that the next bump we hit didn’t mean an accidental discharge into me. We all die sometime but I was hoping my death would be in bed with my boots off or, if not, in a blaze of glory rather than because the local council couldn’t be arsed to repair their potholes. That would be even worse than being shot in the arse.
Phoenix stopped tapping and flipped down the lid. He moved up to the hatch – the engine was so noisy he had to shout through to the cab. We were being thrown around so much in the back that I couldn’t hear what was happening, but they were orders. They were loud, they were short, and they were sharp. He came back and stuffed the antenna into the bag, followed by the laptop.
He pointed down at the woman and shouted so there would be no misunderstanding. ‘She is staying. We leave everything, including the weapons. The embassy will clear up the mess. Everything stays apart from him.’ He didn’t care whether or not I understood he was talking about me. ‘We need to know what he knows.’
A threat assessment would be made when they got home. Could phase two, the attack, be carried out with success after these two compromises? It was going to be hard for them to come to a decent assessment because I had no intention of being there to help them.
That probably wouldn’t concern Phoenix too much. Sometimes the plan doesn’t need a plan, you just need a pair of bollocks to get the job done, and maybe even after all this shit he would still come back to finish the job.
47
For the next thirty minutes we were on B roads, and the Wolves got into their protein bars and water as we slowed down or sometimes came to a halt to let larger vehicles pass, then drove through a small built-up area. I could hear voices and vehicle doors closing before we stopped to let a bunch of chattering schoolkids cross the road. Then we turned off tarmac and rumbled over a rutted surface, stones ricocheting off the wheel arches. Assuming the kids had been heading for school, it must now be about eight o’clock or soon after.
It was maybe another fifteen before Tailgate got up and climbed over the woman’s body, checking his weapon as he took up a position by the side door. Yulia uncurled in the corner and pulled her hair back to expose her face, desperate to get out of this van. She was shooed back by 007. Not yet.
Phoenix concentrated on waffling to Tailgate as the VW began to bounce cross-country, stones kicked up by the wheels as the van negotiated the dips and bumps that must have been a track. With the lurching and clattering it was difficult to hear what he was saying. Whatever it was, he got lots of nods in return.
The VW slowed. The driver would be wanting to keep the revs down so they didn’t bumble into something too quickly to have time to react. We must be getting close.
&n
bsp; The vehicle came to a very gentle halt. The engine was switched off, and I didn’t hear the handbrake go on. The driver had probably kept his hand on the button to stop it ratcheting.
Phoenix eased the door open to reveal, framed in the doorway just two metres in front of us, a block of perfectly spaced commercial forestry firs. The sun was out and it was high enough to cast the camper van’s shadow onto the scrub between us and the treeline.
Foma climbed out carefully to join Tailgate, both with their weapons in their hands, and they moved off, nothing else said, into the treeline and disappeared. They must be recceing. The pick-up point must be either on the other side of the block or within it.
Phoenix got out, checking the area with his weapon in his hand, not in the shoulder. He wasn’t flapping, but he checked his watch more than seemed necessary. He looked left and right and around, even skyward, his mouth open, listening as if he were in the battle space. Then he took yet another glance at his watch.
Yulia’s body faced the corpse on the floor but she kept her head turned to one side. There was no crying, fretting, or short, weak, nervous breathing. She was in control, almost rising above the carnage, just waiting for the moment it would end.
007 wasn’t slack now: he was making sure the suppressed barrel was against my neck and aching for the order to drop me.
It was getting to shit or bust time again. Phoenix looked at his Luminox. Soon we’d have to be moved out of the van to whatever was picking us up. That would be the next time I was on my feet and could get my hands working. They were so swollen now that the plasticuffs were invisible. The scabs on my knuckles had split with the swelling and clear fluid was trying to form a seal over them but it wasn’t working.
It was no more than fifteen minutes before Tailgate and Foma emerged from the treeline and Phoenix went to meet them for the sit-rep. There was too much hushed waffling for everything to be okay, that was for sure.