Dead Centre

by Andy McNab

  BB turned and ran back, then reappeared almost immediately, dragging the boy. He threw him over his left shoulder. Weapon in the right hand, he headed west, his back to the sun, kicking up grit as he went. He knew where he was going. Even in this heat and with the weight of the boy, BB could cover the twenty K to Jilib in short order.

  He didn’t look back. He knew there was no need to. He just had to make distance.

  A couple more rounds went off as the second prop coughed and died and the cloud began to settle.

  I set off behind them, keeping to the right, using the cover of the bush as best I could. The Skyvan soon disappeared behind me.

  I pulled off the top of one of the mini-flare sets to expose the penjector. I took it out, screwed it onto a flare, and pulled it out with a gentle pop. I kept on running. It was vital that BB didn’t see me. His M4 was accurate to about three hundred metres. The flares weren’t accurate at all.

  BB disappeared into a stretch of scrub and heat haze and didn’t come out again. My feet slipped in the sand as I tried to make ground, still using the cover.

  BB might be fronting it. Going to ground, staying concealed. We look for him, we lose him, and at last light he moves off.

  It was what his training would be telling him to do. And he would have the bottle for it. He might even know I was behind him, and be waiting for me to move into his weapon sights. What’s the point of running if there are people behind you that you can’t shake off? Stop, take me on, kill me, and then keep going.

  This wasn’t a frightened animal I was chasing. It was a highly trained ex-SAS trooper with a score to settle and a big cash prize ahead of him.

  I moved right of the point where he had become unsighted.

  Slowing down now. Throat burning. Head burning. Relentless heat.

  I kept low but fast, not daring to lose ground. Within a few seconds, I came to a dried-up watercourse. It was three metres deep and a couple wide after centuries of angry flash floods. I lay down at the wadi’s edge and scanned its bed, left and right. There was no sign. No sign at all. No one had been along here in any direction. He must still be somewhere down on my left.

  Feet first, penjector in hand, I slipped slowly down the bank. When I hit the bottom, my left hand supported my right, as if I was holding my Glock. My body became a firing platform. My legs were shoulder-width apart, left foot forward so I turned forty-five degrees to the direction I was heading. I was balanced forward and back, left and right, as I started to move along the wadi.

  Only my trigger thumb was free. It was the only thing I allowed to move as I kept the flare ahead of me, in my field of view.

  30

  SLOWLY, IN BOUNDS, as if I was patrolling, I kept moving, using the wadi as cover. I came to a bend. I stopped and listened before inching round it, weapon up, into the dead ground.

  The watercourse twisted and turned, casting shadows, as it headed east towards the sea. The sun was now facing me. It burnt into my face, making it hard to see. I stopped short of another bend, listened again, then carried on, keeping low, hands up in the aim.

  I negotiated a left-hander and heard a whisper ahead. I stopped. Leaning towards the sound, left ear pointing towards it, I held my breath so I could hear what the fuck was going on three – maybe even six or seven – metres away.

  The whisper became muffled. I could only just hear it.

  I dried my right hand in the dust on the side of the wadi then replaced my thumb on the cocking piece. I brought the flare back up into the firing position. Sweat dripped off my forehead and stung my eyes. I shook my head. The sun glared down even more fiercely into my face.

  I started to edge round the corner. I could just see BB, sitting beneath an overhang in a stretch of shade, knees up, facing back the way he had come. He had the butt of the M4 in the shoulder, right hand around the pistol grip as he squeezed the forward firing handle between his knees to keep the barrel pointing up to the lip of the wadi. His free hand was around Stefan. He gripped the little boy’s mouth, bringing his head tight against him, to keep him quiet.

  I took another pace forwards. I needed to get as close as I could before this went noisy. I thumbed back the cocking piece. Stefan was between us, in the path of a clean shot. He was going to see me first. But that was just fine. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to start the commotion that would get BB to move, to bring the weapon down and turn it towards me. But not just yet.

  I kept the weapon up towards the target, my support hand still wrapped around the dominant one, my shoulder forward so my nose was closer to the target than my toes. My right arm pushed the weapon towards BB as my left exerted rearward pressure, so the platform was rigid.

  I kept moving forward, closing in.

  Stefan saw me, saw my weapon. He screamed into BB’s hand and struggled to free himself as I approached. Not surprisingly, after the events of the last twelve hours, he didn’t seem to know whether I was friend or foe.

  I kept both eyes fixed on the target, dead centre of mass of the two bodies. The flare on the end of the tube came into my vision and became my primary focus. The target and the cocking piece were now just blurs. I focused on the flare with both eyes.

  BB’s head swung round as he tried to tighten his grip on the boy. His eyes locked onto me. No surprise; no anger. Just confidence. Knowing what he needed to do. His unmoving stare didn’t leave my centre mass. The rest of his body came round, with the weapon, to align itself with his head. The M4 came up.

  He let go of the boy. He needed his left hand to grip the firing handle on the forward stock. As Stefan stumbled and fell, BB’s sights came into his focus.

  I kept static, keeping a stable platform for the flare.

  I let go of the cocking piece and the flare kicked off with a loud bang. A split second later, a blindingly bright ball of flame was burning into his thigh like molten lava. He stumbled backwards, loosing off a short burst into the side of the gully.

  The rounds thumped into the dried mud metres away from me.

  31

  BB’S SCREAMS ECHOED up and down the narrow channel. The magnesium would consume the flesh until all the oxygen in it was used up. He lay in the dust, his body jerking as he took the pain and the shock of being hit. Flesh sizzled and dense white smoke poured out of the open crater in his leg.

  Stefan stood transfixed.

  I grabbed him with both hands, pushed him, trembling, up the side of the wadi. ‘Go! Go to your godfathers. Go!’

  The sounds coming out of him were pure animal fear. ‘Where? Where?’

  ‘By the plane. Get up there and you’ll see ’em. Go! They’re waiting for you!’

  He got to the lip of the wadi but stayed rooted to the spot, looking down at me. I lobbed a stone at him. ‘Fuck off! Go!’

  He turned, screaming Russian. I swung back to BB. The M4’s working parts were to the rear. The mag was empty. He’d pinned his hopes on hitting me with those last few rounds before moving on.

  The flare had stopped burning. His agony was clear to see. But he still attempted a smile. ‘It was all about the money, mate. That’s all.’

  I unscrewed the empty cylinder from the penjector and screwed down onto a new one. There was another little pop as it slid out of the container.

  BB heard it too. His head fell back into the sand. His face contorted with pain. The sun beat down on us. He panted as he tried to keep control of his breathing. He’d want to have the last word. He always had.

  My shadow fell across him. He looked up, making sure we had eye-to-eye. ‘You know I never gave a fuck about Tracy. I never gave a fuck about her slapper sister. Or Frank. Any of them. Even the boy. Fuck ’em all.’

  I leant down and held the flare inches from his forehead. But he still wasn’t going to beg or try to cut a deal. I knew that.

  Through his pain, he did finally manage a smile. ‘Know what? I didn’t even give a fuck about Mong. I let him die. Risk getting myself killed for a bunch of slopes? Fuck that. He wanted to f
ight, so I let him. Fuck it. Fuck him.’

  He looked up at me. ‘Fuck you, too.’

  His breath quickened. Sand coated his face.

  I got down on my knees. I wanted to get as close to him as possible. I didn’t want him to miss anything that I was about to say and do.

  ‘Mong wanted to fight to give me time to do the job we were there to do. He was protecting me. That’s what mates do when they’ve spent time being wet, cold and hungry together. Real mates put their lives on the line for each other. We’re members of the same tribe. That’s something you never, ever got.’

  I pressed the flare against his temple. He didn’t even flinch.

  ‘You’re not going to hear me begging. It’s not going to happen.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  He laughed. ‘Better to burn out than fade away, eh?’

  ‘You’re about to find out.’

  I pulled back the cocking piece and let go.

  The penjector jumped a little in my hand and I rolled back to see his head already frying. His body jerked about as if he was in an electric chair for the whole six seconds.

  I sat in the wadi, not even bothering to move into the shade. I looked at the charred remains of BB’s head. Smoke curled from the entry wound as the last of the magnesium ate down to the bone. It poured out of his closed eyes. The wound in his thigh glistened in the brilliant sunlight.

  I kicked off flare after flare into the sky. It was only minutes before Frank’s boys appeared on the bank above me. Stefan was firmly wrapped around Mr Lover Man. He kissed the boy gently, murmured to him; smoothed his hair, shielded him from the sight below.

  Genghis was lugging a blue tarpaulin, the sort you find in pound shops. I realized what he had inside it as he slid down to the wadi bed with the bloodstained axe in his hand. It took him three swings to take off BB’s head. It joined Ant’s and Dec’s, and another I supposed must have belonged to the pilot. He spun it closed and slung it back over his shoulder.

  He motioned for me to fire more flares. I kicked off another one and followed him up the wadi.

  I could hear the Cargomaster up there somewhere but the sun was getting higher so I couldn’t see it. I sat in the sand, loosing off the last two as Mr Lover Man continued to comfort Stefan. Genghis threw the axe into the sand. We all just waited, not wanting to talk, not wanting to celebrate, not wanting to do anything. I was totally fucking drained. Mentally and physically.

  The Cargomaster screamed overhead and banked and turned as I started pulling the thorns from my feet.

  32

  THE ENGINE NOISE was a constant drone in the cargo hold. We were following the coastline, flying low. The lush greenery to the right was Kenya. I was perched between two bundles. Tracy was swathed in a tarpaulin like an Egyptian mummy. The heads were in another. They’d been stowed right at the rear, out of Stefan’s sight.

  Genghis was between me and the cockpit. He was either asleep or just lying there, I wasn’t sure. His head lolled on his discarded body armour. The boy was next to Joe, sitting on Mr Lover Man’s lap, being cuddled, cajoled and comforted.

  Stefan held a nearly empty bottle of water. Mr Lover Man was fooling about, trying to get him to finish it. He needed to get some liquids down him. There still wasn’t much reaction from the boy at all.

  I sat staring at the bundles. Mong dead. Tracy dead. Now even BB. It was as if a part of my life had ended too. Maybe it was meant to be. Anna was the important one now. This situation I knew about; her’s I didn’t. I just hoped we’d be able to pick up where we’d left off.

  I pulled the iPhone from my pocket. There wasn’t much power left but there were three bars of signal. To try to find some shelter from the noise, I lay down next to Tracy. It wasn’t much help. Finally, with a finger in my other ear, I called her. No mad Arab women this time, just a long, uninterrupted tone. Maybe the French and Brits had bombed the infrastructure to shit.

  I cut off. Then I called Jules and went straight to voicemail. ‘Mate, I’m in Kenya, heading to Anna today. I’ll call when I get some more power on this thing.’

  Mr Lover Man turned and shouted at Genghis. The cockpit suddenly became a hive of activity. They both peered out of the pockmarked windscreen and Joe gobbed off to air traffic control.

  I got up and moved forward. Mr Lover Man was pointing Stefan’s gaze in the direction of his dad. The G6 couldn’t be missed, even at this distance. The airport was not much more than two tarmac runways, big black scars in the ground that joined each other at a right angle. There were a couple of small buildings and hangars, and light aircraft dotted about. Sunlight flashed on the top left corner of the screen as we began our final approach.

  The boy peeped at me over Mr Lover Man’s shoulder. He looked more like Frank by the second. I gave him a smile and a wink but got no reaction. The boy turned, the water bottle still in his hand, and nestled into his godfather’s chest. His hair was plastered with sand.

  I looked down at him and realized he was going to be OK. His father loved him; his godfathers loved him. Kids have survived war, famine, even the Holocaust, and still become good, stable people. And, besides, Stefan had something other kids didn’t have. The Frank gene. No doubt even this experience would be turned into an advantage later in life.

  I felt a little jealous of him. Both his parents had loved him so much, and Mr Lover Man had given Stefan more cuddles and kisses on the cheek during this trip than I’d ever got in my whole childhood.

  The wheels touched down, smooth as silk, and Joe taxied towards the G6 by the junction of the runways.

  The boy craned his neck towards the jet. Mr Lover Man took the chance to turn and glance at me. His expression hadn’t changed. Fair one. What the fuck did they care about me? The job was the job. The boy was safe. That was all that mattered.

  It wasn’t much of a movie ending, but Frank and the lads had what they wanted more than anything. It was all about the boy.

  We stopped behind the G6 and the prop spluttered to a halt. It was a bit of an anti-climax. No bands; no welcoming committee. No mayor to give us the freedom of Malindi.

  Joe flung open the cockpit door and climbed straight out to start his inspection. ‘Fucking hell, man. Look at this.’ The Perspex was crazed. The fuselage had a lot of new air-conditioning.

  Mr Lover Man left the plane carrying Stefan. I followed Genghis out of the shuttered door. I left them to it and joined Joe. It was very clear that my part in the Frank road show had ended. I just let them get on with it.

  Joe pushed a fist into a gash in the aluminium and peeled it back a little more. He peered inside his airframe. ‘What happens now, man? What the fuck’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know, mate. All I know is that I’ve got to get to Benghazi.’

  His hand shot down to his side as if he’d been given an electric shock. ‘What? You really are fucking crazy, man. Haven’t you had enough of this shit already?’ He nodded towards the hold. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Georgians – and a guy who used to be a mate. They wanted the boy. His dad wasn’t on their Christmas-card list, if you know what I mean.’

  His hands came up to cover his ears. ‘Don’t want to know any more of that shit, man. Just make sure the dad makes good on my airframe. I’m going to be down the beach very soon, getting some beer and doing fuck-all. While that’s happening, my new machine can be on order. That’s me sorted. What you crazy fuckers do is up to you.’

  I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Mr Lover Man with Stefan still attached to his hip, and Genghis.

  Mr Lover Man kissed the boy on the cheek and murmured to him in Russian. Stefan nodded slowly. Mr Lover Man looked at me. His expression hadn’t changed. He still looked like he wanted that axe in the top of my head.

  ‘You have given us Stefan back. Now you must hand Mr Timis his son.’

  He passed him over to me, and I finally got a smile. ‘Thank you, Nick.’ He nodded and stood aside as Genghis held out a hand.
Even he came out with a thickly accented ‘Tank you.’

  I finished the handshake and headed for the G6. Stefan rested his chin on my shoulder, looking down at the pan.

  As I reached the bottom of the steps, Frank appeared in the doorway. He was still dressed in immaculately creased jeans and a crisply ironed, short-sleeved white shirt, with a pen in the breast pocket. But his face wasn’t in such pristine condition. He was crying.

  33

  AS I STARTED up the steps I whispered into the little boy’s ear, ‘Daddy’s here, Stefan! Look!’

  His head lifted and turned. At last there was a smile on the boy’s face too. He struggled to release himself. ‘Papa! Papa!’

  We reached the door.

  Frank held out his arms and took him from me. They hugged each other hard. Tears streamed down Frank’s cheeks as he kissed his son’s face. ‘Oh, my Stefan …’

  Frank carried him into the interior, a feast of white leather La-Z-Boy type seats and sofas and thick-pile carpets. I stayed where I was, just inside the door. Frank walked further into the aircraft. He sat down on a curved settee with his son. They embraced and kissed.

  Stefan sparked up in Russian. I didn’t know what he was saying but he was tripping over himself as he raced to explain everything that had happened. I heard, ‘Mama, Mama,’ a couple of times.

  Frank wiped the boy’s tears from his cheeks. His own were drenched. He couldn’t control himself.

  Soon Frank was talking to him gently in Russian and stroking his face. He made some sort of funny, as you do with kids. It didn’t work.

  An older woman emerged from the door nearest the cockpit, set into a wall of varnished walnut veneer. She said a gentle but cheerful hello to the boy and stroked his hair.

  Stefan knew her. She led him away by the hand, but not before he got one more kiss on the forehead from his father.

  Frank watched him all the way to the bedroom, where his son turned and waved.