by Chris Ryan
Heart pounding, flies swarming around his face, Gardner entered the clearing.
The camp was empty. Signs left around the camp told him that whoever had been here recently bugged out. Damp smoke drifted off a doused fire. A makeshift A-frame, set up at the northern end of the clearing with split atap vines thickly layered across the roof, was also empty. A latrine had been dug up twenty metres to the east of the A-frame. It was brimming with shit and piss that flies feasted on. Gardner spotted a half-full bottle of water hanging from a tree by a rope, and, next to the fire, the stub of a Cohiba cigar. He kneeled and picked it up. The leaves were wet at the mouth end.
The cigar, the fresh shit, the water. John must’ve bugged out less than an hour ago. An uneasy feeling clawed at his guts. The camp didn’t feel right. Bald had the reputation of a vigilant Blade, the kind of bloke who was expert at covering his tracks, right down to bagging every last drop of piss. But the guy who’d lived here was lazy and hadn’t made any effort to cover up his tracks.
Gunfire shattered his thoughts.
To your six o’clock, he figured.
He turned. Silhouettes. Ten of them, forty metres away. They sliced through the rattan bushes with machetes, chopping vines and shouting. He saw a figure point a shotgun at the understory.
Boom!
Birds fluttered. The tail end of a boa constrictor was tossed into the air.
Messengers.
Gardner went into contact mode. He fell back to a caroba tree and knelt down behind the trunk, giving himself a clear line of sight, above the undergrowth, to the targets. Thirty metres to the Messengers. They were heading straight for the clearing. Bugging out was a non-starter; in this terrain he couldn’t pick up speed, and they’d soon be on his case. So, time to give them the good news.
Fifteen rounds left in the Colt. He waited until the first target was ten metres from the edge of the clearing, and opened fire, single-shot. The target dropped, and his mates went batshit, spraying rounds in every direction. Gardner was partially concealed between the A-frame and the caroba tree, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they spotted him. He unleashed four rounds, two into the torso of a tall, gangly target, the others for his friend beside him, his body jerking like some weird street dance.
He was winning the fight. The Messengers couldn’t get a fix on him. They were shitting themselves. Any minute now they’ll fucking do one, he thought.
Splinters showered his face, throwing him on to his back.
He looked at the shredded caroba trunk. The shots hadn’t come from the group to the east. Then another two rounds splashed into the soil around him, and Gardner was displacing to a shallow scrape behind the shit pit, cursing his bad luck.
A hundred metres north-east the jungle crested up into a ridgeline, where the undergrowth was stripped away, as if someone had given the ground a Brazilian. Rocky soil jutted out like a series of knuckle joints. And, exposed on the ridge, stood seven Messengers, taking pot shots at Gardner.
Bullets flung maggot-riddled shit into the air. Gardner kept his head down, desperately thinking of a plan B. The Messengers to the east burst into the clearing, twenty metres distant. He chopped the first two down with his Colt, ducking to avoid the gunfire from the guys on the ridge.
You’re pinned down and on your last eight rounds, he was thinking. Any second now you’ll be overrun.
Three more gangsters raced into the clearing, thirty metres ahead.
The light, rapid crack of a Colt Commando silenced their shouts.
‘Come to daddy,’ a voice called out. ‘You know you fucking want it.’
It was full-on cockney. Not Scottish, not John. Dry and hoarse, as if he’d necked a pint of sand. But unmistakable all the same.
Gardner peered out from the scrape. A rangy guy in a loose black T-shirt and grey combats, Bergen strapped to his back, raked gunfire down at the Messengers in the clearing. Their bodies formed a pile at the clearing mouth. He sliced up the final guy and slid over to Gardner’s position.
‘Well, say something, you silly cunt.’
Topped by Brylcreemed hair, the face had pockmarked cheeks and the rough horseshoe that was always the front-runner for the annual Credenhill shit tache competition.
‘Dave?’
‘Don’t act so surprised, lad. It’s me, not fucking Bono.’
‘But what the—?’
‘I’ll explain it all, mate, soon as we’ve sent these wankers over to the dark side.’
Dave Hands was right. No time for questions. Hands vittled a few rounds over the top of the scrape, at a couple of injured Messengers trying to take cover.
‘Reckon we need to pepper-pot back to a baseline.’
‘All well and good, mate, but I’m down to my last few rounds.’
Hands nodded, fishing out a fresh clip from his utility belt. ‘Don’t ask, don’t get. How many on the ridgeline?’
‘Seven, total.’ Gardner peered over the top, sighted a Messenger cross-graining the ridge on a downward slope towards the camp. Two taps on the trigger: slotted. ‘Six. See that ditch just short of the ridge? Make that the baseline.’
‘Bit of the old fire-and-move, yeah? Read my mind better than my ex-fucking-wife.’ Hands checked his Commando. ‘Right then. Thumbs out bloody arses.’
‘Covering fire!’
Hands displaced from the scrape while Gardner concentrated the last six rounds of the clip on the Messengers on the ridge. The distraction worked. The Messengers returned fire on Gardner, ignoring Hands as he railed the western edge of the clearing, lying up at the ditch twenty metres ahead of Gardner. Now he went into contact mode, and Gardner sprang out from the shit-splayed scrape, racing diagonally across the clearing as fast as his tired leg muscles could carry him. Rounds smacked into the soil around him, flinging dirt into the air like geysers. Gardner hit the ditch.
As soon as he reached the baseline he saw Hands, down on his knees, spraying the Messengers. Gardner slapped in a new clip. The Messengers sought cover, but there was none. They must have realized the mistake of attacking from the ridgeline too late, as Hands sprayed arcs of lead mayhem along their position. Gardner fixed his eyes on Hands. The moment he eased his trigger finger, indicating he needed to reload, Gardner stood up and picked off Messengers with his remaining rounds. One, two, three: they dropped like Lehman Brothers’ shares. Two final targets legged it.
‘Fucking showed them the time of day,’ said Hands, spitting.
‘Let’s break out of here before their mates get the scent. Millions of those bastards in the favela.’
But Hands didn’t move. He stood up, propped his rifle against a tree trunk and fetched a pouch of Cutter’s Choice baccy from his pocket. ‘Relax, Joe. They ain’t coming back. You know what they’re like?’ He lit the end of his Rizla paper. ‘Catholics practising safe sex. First sign of trouble, they pull out.’
Gardner surveyed the carnage. Smoke mist clung to their legs. The air tasted of hot metal, cordite so thick he could chew on it, like gum. I wouldn’t be so sure, he thought.
‘What the fuck are you doing here anyway?’ he said.
‘Nice to see you too, mate.’ Hands caned on his cigarette. ‘I could ask you the same question. Suppose the two of us could waffle on for fucking ages, but you know what? Be easier if you hear everything from the man himself.’
‘You mean—?’
‘John’s up the hill. He sent me to get you.’
14
1512 hours.
Weiss traipsed up the street. Towards the sound of gunfire. In the favela, if you wanted to find out the truth you followed the bullets.
But the cramps in his stomach and the convulsions in his legs had reduced his pace to a shuffle. He inched forward with one hand pressed against the bullet-flecked walls of the surrounding homes. It had taken forever to make his way from the torture house.
A hundred and fifty metres from the firefight now. Smoke clogged the air. The soft pulse of a helicopter. Hot ash parch
ed his throat.
Son of Mary and Joseph, for a sip of water.
He stooped, and vomited. The fourth time in the past hour and his guts had no chunks left to hock up, just bitter yellowish liquid. He looked down. He’d puked on a chicken pen. The rainbow-coloured birds cawed their disgust.
As he drew near to the top of the favela the street inclined sharply. He wasn’t sure if his legs could carry him much further. He stopped to catch his breath. His temperature had rocketed. The corners of his lips had cracked open, like paper cuts. Something is badly wrong, he thought. Maybe I’ve contracted a fever.
His mind cleared for a second. Fifty metres away, a blurred face came into focus, and he realized he’d hit the jackpot.
Roulette faced west, giving his back to Weiss. He’d not yet seen the Mexican. Roulette was barking orders at three goons. His voice was rasping, frantic. Weiss hushed his rapid breathing and hunched up against the wall.
‘How many left?’ Roulette asked.
‘Alive, boss, or just the ones who can fight?’
‘If they’re alive, they’d better fight, or I’ll fucking kill them myself.’
The goon hesitated. ‘Twenty. They had the helicopter, we had nowhere to hide—’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Roulette cut in. ‘And BOPE got the Russian guns from the bodies too. Which means that we’re fucked, because they’re going to understand where we got them from. Forget it. We can kill two birds with one stone. The guy who sold us the guns, he’s the one who was going to rob us. We find him, it’s done.’
‘But, boss, the chopper—’
‘The chopper can suck my dick. There’s an RPG stash on the other side of the favela, in the safe house next to the hospital. The boys can take them. We’ll shoot that fucking thing down. And Carlos’ – Roulette clamped his fingers around the goon’s neck – ‘make it quick. I don’t want this bitch to escape.’
‘Sure, whatever. What about you, boss?’ asked the other goon.
‘I’m going to finish off that Mexicano cunt.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘By now Alberto should have finished on his hands and dick. See you in an hour.’
The goons departed.
From his position behind the wall, Weiss spied Roulette pounding the street. Heading in his direction. Weiss reached into his duster. His left hand was shaking. He gripped the wrist with his right hand to control it, and produced a syringe. A thought picked at his frontal lobe, vanished before he could seize it.
Roulette was twenty-five metres off. With his left hand uncontrollable, Weiss chomped the syringe between his teeth and ripped off the cap. His guts made a squelching noise, as if his stomach was seeping acid into his bowels.
Ten metres.
Weiss steeled his hand. The needle glinted.
Five metres.
Roulette’s shadow skated past.
Now.
Weiss swung around the corner and found Roulette almost on top of him. The Messenger leader collided with Weiss, who had to fight hard to stop himself toppling backwards. Roulette’s eyes, a couple of black poker chips, blinked their surprise at him, then lowered and inspected the needle as it punched his stomach.
Roulette took two steps back and tugged the syringe out. Foaming at the mouth and swaying on his feet, he seized up.
‘How does it feel?’ Weiss asked, as Big Teeth’s number two struggled for breath. ‘Really, I’m curious. Do you know what’s in your bloodstream?’
Roulette’s eyes ballooned. He sweated feverishly, making a supreme effort to shake his head.
‘I’ve injected you with Batrachotoxin. The name means nothing to you, naturally.’ Roulette grunted his agreement. ‘But perhaps you are familiar with the poison dart frog. The poison is the most deadly toxin known to man. It will attack your central nervous system first, paralyzing your muscles one by one. You’ll be in a state of helplessness as you lose control of your body. Your chest will feel like… like it’s crushed underneath a cattle stampede. Breathing will become impossible. And you’ve shit yourself, I see. This… this is what you get for trying to fuck with—’
Weiss spewed blood, spraying Roulette’s neck and shirt. He rested a hand on Roulette’s shoulder to stop himself from falling over and dear God, his kidney was on fire.
He looked at Roulette and forgot about his pain. The Messenger’s skin shifted pale blue. Many people panicked or cried in their last moments of life, and some even accepted death without complaint. But Roulette laughed. Weiss wasn’t sure why. His eyes narrowed to dead matchsticks, his face screwing up in amusement.
It was the laugh of a man who intended his to be the last.
Weiss left Roulette on his knees, floundering in a pool of his own shit, and dragged himself up the street. The street peaked. He saw the bodies first, spread-eagled and deformed. Messy deaths, the kind Weiss disapproved of. It seemed strange when he considered it, but Weiss hated the sight of blood. That’s why he used syringes.
The school. Nobody about. Decorated with bullet holes and cartridges, as if God had placed a storm cloud over Barbosa favela and made it hail brass.
He saw a Messenger fleeing from the north, running so fast his feet seemed not to touch the ground, and he knew instantly his destination.
The jungle.
That’s where he’d hit pay dirt.
15
1600 hours.
Gardner and Hands moved low amid the undergrowth. They stuck to the most impenetrable route through the jungle – Gardner’s idea, in case the Messengers picked up the chase again.
‘This is pointless,’ Hands moaned. ‘I’m telling you, we’re safe as bloody houses. You remember the crap insurgents in Basra? Shooting from the hip like they think they’re in fucking Hollywood. These guys are ten times worse, mate.’
‘I remember,’ Gardner said, ‘more than a hundred good soldiers died in Basra.’
‘Yeah, but you always get one or two.’
Gardner took no notice of Hands and his spiel. He had spent fifteen years of his life hyper-alert and sticking to the cardinal rule – never underestimate your enemy – and he wasn’t about to give up now. The jungle air was damp and moist, his clothes drenched, sticky. A trickling noise reached his ears, like coins jangling in his pocket. It came from the north-west. Energy coursed through him. He could hear the blood rushing through his head.
All the while he was keeping one eye on Hands. The man wasn’t moving with care, snagging his Bergen against branches, trampling on tall grass and generally leaving the kind of sign that would make David Stirling roll in his grave.
‘Been what, four, five years?’ said Gardner.
‘Five years, eight months and twelve days. Not that I’m counting.’
‘So what’s the buzz?’
Hands was quiet for a beat.
‘Down here helping John. What’s it fucking look like?’
Gardner raised an eyebrow. ‘With BOPE?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘I didn’t know you and John kept in touch.’
Hands was silent again, as if they were talking over a bad phone line. ‘Well, you know, we didn’t for a while. He was doing this, I was tied up in a bit of that… You want the truth, Joe? No one fucking talked to me after, after – it. Not one fucking Blade. Not Pitman, not Grant, not even fucking you.’
He had turned on Gardner like a Rottweiler, eyeballing him ferociously. Gardner returned the compliment. Backing down wasn’t in his DNA.
‘Spare me the self-pity act, Dave. You fucked up the moment you tried to sell the drugs. Ten thousand ecstasy tablets, for fuck’s sake. Once you made that choice, you deserved everything that came your way. And here’s another thing. I don’t give two shits whether you think it was me or any of the other lads who set you up with that undercover copper. Because, you know what? You made your bed. You fucking lie in it. There’s no one to blame for what happened but yourself.’
‘You can be a real dick sometimes, Joe,’ said Hands, stepping into Gardner’s face. ‘Just because
not everyone goes around licking Regiment arse, you think you got a right to fucking judge me.’
Gardner was suddenly conscious of the Colt by Hands’ side. His finger paused on the trigger.
All alone, middle of nowhere, it would be so easy…
‘And yeah, I got caught.’ Hands’ voice was becoming scratchy. ‘No argument there. But I paid a heavy fucking price. Years after that, I couldn’t get work wiping the shit off someone’s arse. You don’t know what I went through. No fucking idea. We all make mistakes, mate, but some of us take a harder fall. Know what I mean?’
Hands lifted his finger off the trigger. Then he smiled and extended his left hand. ‘But I always say, past is past. I ain’t got no grievance with you no more.’
Gardner shook hands with his prosthetic.
‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance. If John’s willing to trust you, that’s good enough for me.’
He said it to put Hands at ease, not because he truly meant it. Hands, he knew, was prone to losing his cool. He’d once stuck his gun in the face of a guy who tried to overtake him on the A3. Threatened to shoot the driver and his bird on the spot. The CO of D Squadron, 22 SAS, Major Neil Buckie, severely reprimanded him, but Hands didn’t shape up.
Then the drugs bust left Buckie with no choice but to give him the boot. And, in the years since, Regiment gossip had reached Gardner’s ears of the dodgy dealings Hands was involved in. Pornography distribution, including kiddie porn and bestiality; counterfeit passports and credit card scams; drug dealing.
So why’s John working with him? Gardner wondered, but he backburned the question.
They burrowed on through the jungle, Gardner’s arms and legs in pain, his body cannibalizing its muscle for energy. Adrenalin supercharged his veins.
Two hundred metres further on, Gardner realized the origin of the jangling sound: up ahead, a fast-flowing creek running downhill along the basin of a pocked ridge.