For Valour

by Andy McNab

  Our comms operated on a frequency-hopping system, so they were pretty secure unless you used the handset to call your mum and she kept you on the line, but it still made sense not to ID names.

  ‘The appointment diary was full to bursting until around now, and all day tomorrow, so I went for a brew. When I got back, the wagon wasn’t there.’

  I didn’t ask him whether he’d zipped through a couple of crossword puzzles while he was waiting, but I would later.

  Trev brought us up to speed. He’d rung the receptionist and asked for an emergency appointment; apparently he even knew the Swedish for ‘root canal’. She’d told him Mr K had left for the day, and wouldn’t be back until after the weekend. That was bad news for us, but probably good news for her. As the shadows lengthened, Stockholm was going to be a lot more comfortable than this bit of Östergötland.

  Trev had checked out Koureh’s city apartment and the four other known locations, but he wasn’t at any of them. So we had to assume the target was heading in our direction. His drive was about three and a half hours from the capital, which meant we had to get our finger out.

  I put the empty bottle and sausage cans back into my daysack and took out the alarm clock we’d bought at a Clas Ohlson hardware store in Tranås. Next out of the sack were the Swan Vestas. You could spark these things up on the zip of your Levi’s, but the coarse sandpaper striker that ran along the side of the box was what I needed. I cut the strikers off two boxes and tucked them into the left-hand pocket of my bomber jacket. The clock and a bunch of loose matches went into the right.

  I told Harry to take up position behind the treeline. Good-looking or not, I still reckoned it would be a whole lot safer for both of us if he stayed out of sight while I went back inside and messed around with Koureh’s pipework. And if anyone came along the track that led to the house, I wanted to hear about it from Harry first.

  I told him to do his owl call if he spotted any incoming threat. It was one of his favourite party tricks.

  I could see he was chuffed, but a bit worried too. ‘What if you confuse it with a real owl?’

  I gave him a big grin and clapped him on the cheek. ‘No chance of that, mate. It sounds more like the siren on a New York fire truck. That’s why I suggested it.’

  I got to my feet and moved a few metres back for a piss before doglegging towards the lake to check for movement on the water. I didn’t want a summer cruise party or even a lone kayaker as an audience when I slipped into that basement. A pair of osprey circled lazily above the trees on one of the nearby islands, but nothing and no one else was invading their space.

  I picked up a forked stick a couple of feet long on my way back through the trees and slipped on my gloves as I walked out onto the immaculately trimmed lawn.

  Five minutes later I ducked beneath the slatted platform at the top of the steps up to the kitchen doorway. Dew had started to form, making the gravel pathway surrounding the house cold and slightly slippery to the touch. I could feel my shirt and jeans dampen as I got down onto my belt buckle.

  The window I’d unclipped earlier was hinged at the top and wider than it was high – so big enough to allow a lad in Timberland boots and a bomber jacket to gain entry if he didn’t want to keep using the front door. The frame stood proud of the casing by about a centimetre where it met the sill. I gripped both sides of it with the tips of my polythene-covered fingers, prised it open and wedged the forked stick in one corner to keep it in place.

  Then I turned and slid inside, feet first.

  6

  Harry and I were travelling light on this job. We always did. The Swedish police might routinely carry pistols and keep Heckler & Kochs locked down in their wagons, but they didn’t like anyone else doing it, especially if they were in-country without a formal invitation. The same went for slabs of high explosive and rolls of det cord. So when you were aiming to bring the rafters down on a guy who didn’t deserve to keep enjoying his Jacuzzi, you had to make do with whatever came to hand.

  It was still light enough outside for me to see clearly without having to risk a torch beam blitzing a darkened window. First up, I pulled the toolbox out of its cupboard. Judging by its contents, none of the family wasted much of their time on DIY. Every gadget was in mint condition, even the pliers. Maybe Koureh was saving them for someone special.

  I selected a small hand drill, a clear plastic packet of bits, a roll of double-sided tape and a very shiny adjustable spanner, then took a cloth from a neatly folded pile.

  The boiler gave a sudden rumble as I placed the spanner and the cloth on the floor in front of it, then resumed its soft murmur. I put the roll of tape and the hand drill on the top step beneath the entrance from the house, and extracted the Swans, their ignition strips and the alarm clock from my bomber jacket. I lined them all up and screwed a drill bit the same diameter as a matchstick into the chuck.

  I slowed my breathing and opened my mouth to quieten the roar of the blood-flow in my ears, then turned the door handle and pulled it back far enough to be able to listen for movement above me.

  Nothing.

  I wasn’t expecting any, but these routines always made me feel a bit more secure. Now I could just get on with the job.

  The tape rasped as I peeled two or three inches off the roll and fastened both the ignition strips alongside each other on the bottom of the door. Leaving it ajar, I drilled five neat holes in the sill, as tight as possible to the point at which the leading edge of the strips would cross the threshold. I pushed it closed and tapped a Swan into each hole until only its little red head was visible, then checked that we’d be guaranteed a strike.

  I blew the coil of wood off the bit, slid it into its packet, and put it and the roll of tape back in the toolbox before returning to the boiler.

  Like pretty much everything else in the place, this bit of kit belonged on Planet Zanussi. Its gleaming aluminium casing was a world away from the rusty enamel monster I’d grown up with on our estate in Bermondsey, but it needed to be fed in much the same way. I spent a minute or two following the pattern of the pipework leading in and out of it, then took a couple of paces back, slowed my breathing, opened my mouth and listened some more.

  Still no noise from the rooms overhead.

  I moved back to my entry window and went through the same routine.

  Again, nothing. No owl. No New York fire truck siren.

  Then, in the distance, a sound like a squeaky wheel.

  I slowed my breathing further. After a moment, I heard a soft, sad echo. So, not a wheel. The osprey was calling to its mate.

  I went back to the boiler and wrapped the cloth around a pressure joint by a right-angle bend. If anybody was in the mood to examine it closely enough, I wanted this thing to look like it had sprung a slow leak, and that meant leaving no scratch marks on the brass. I tightened the jaws of the spanner over the freshly wrapped nut, gripped the moulded, rubber-sheathed handle and applied some gentle pressure. It was rock solid.

  I tried again, with a bit more muscle. Same result.

  The third time, it gave.

  I loosened the spanner, removed the cloth, crouched down and leaned my ear right up close to the joint. There was a whisper of gas, like air leaving a radiator valve if you could be bothered to do the rounds with your little brass key when the cold weather arrived.

  The digital time display read 19.57. There was probably a scientific formula for this, but I had no idea what it was. I just wanted Koureh’s basement to fill with enough gas to make a nice big bang the moment he opened that door.

  Natural gas was lighter than air, and dissipated relatively easily. The house had been built in the thirties, so it wouldn’t take long for it to find its way up between the floorboards. The trick was to make sure the mixture was right – more than five per cent by volume but less than fifteen, or it wouldn’t ignite. I gave the nut an extra twist for luck, replaced the spanner and the cloth where I’d found them and shut the cupboard.

  I wound
the alarm clock, primed it to go off in a couple of hours, and left it on the slab of highly polished granite nearest to the doorway. It didn’t exactly go with the Georg Jensen gear in the rest of the house, but if Koureh hadn’t already lit himself a cigar upstairs or come down here to pop his boxers into the washing-machine or do a session on the treadmill, it would ring loudly enough for him to throw open the door to see what was going on.

  At that point the strikers would brush the match heads and we’d have ourselves a serious bonfire. If all else failed I’d creep back onto the sundeck, light his Gucci hurricane lantern, lob it through the glass into his living room, then do a runner.

  As I hauled myself out of the basement window and lowered it back into place, the silence of the pine forest was suddenly broken, and the cries I heard now had nothing to do with the ospreys.

  7

  Harry was sprinting across the lawn, brandishing the world’s biggest branch and shrieking like a banshee as the crunch of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of a wagon at the front of the house.

  He’d obviously decided to bin Plan A. Plan B seemed to involve hurling himself straight at the target’s vehicle with the intention of clubbing him senseless.

  Plan B wasn’t the best plan in the world. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the worst. When I’d slithered out from underneath the steps I could see that Koureh had his roof down. But he wasn’t about to sit there admiring the sunset while some crazed lunatic got up close and battered him around the head.

  As Harry stormed onto the driveway, Koureh adjusted his steering, floored his accelerator pedal and rammed his attacker mid-thigh.

  Harry cartwheeled off the front wing like a rag doll. He landed in a heap on the gravel, gave a low moan and scrabbled around with his fingernails, like a lobster trying to escape the cooking pot. He wasn’t going anywhere fast.

  Koureh braked hard and threw the Saab into reverse. It took me a second to realize that he was more intent on finishing the job with Harry than getting out of my way. I caught up with him as the nearside rear tyre missed his victim’s head and bumped across his lower torso, and launched myself into the back seat as the front tyre followed suit.

  Koureh spun the wheel to throw me off balance, but before his right hand could yank the gearstick into first I scrambled up and wrapped my right arm around his throat. I wrenched him out of the driving seat, away from the pedals and wheel. The wagon stalled and juddered to a halt, and I brought my left hand up to grip my right wrist and tightened my hold.

  The only sounds now were the ticking of the engine and Koureh’s frantic snorts as I hauled his shoulders over the back of his seat. He shot out his legs, trying to jerk his head and body backwards to unbalance me.

  His hands came up, flailing wildly, trying to loosen my grip, but it wasn’t happening. It took another couple of minutes for Plan C to achieve the result A and B had aimed for. I let Koureh’s body slide back into his seat and clambered out over the side of the wagon.

  Harry wasn’t moving. I knelt beside him. There was no exterior bleeding. His legs were splayed and swelling. His pelvis was shot to pieces and both femurs were broken, but no bone fragments had pierced the skin.

  I had no idea of the extent of his internal injuries, but I’d have been surprised if his spleen and kidneys had got off scot free. I shoved two fingers into his neck. His carotid told me some stuff inside him was still working. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

  He opened his eyes, but not much. I could have blindfolded him with dental floss.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  I eased his head towards the Saab to let him see what was slumped against the driver’s door.

  ‘Nice, Nick … nice …’

  He groaned as he turned back to me and glanced down at his injuries. ‘Not brilliant, eh?’

  ‘Seen better.’ I switched into reassuring mode. ‘But I’ve heard some very good things about those Swedish doctors.’

  He gave me a sort of smile. ‘I’ve heard some very good things about those Swedish nurses.’

  ‘Dream on, mate.’ I pulled a face. ‘They’ve got no time for ugly fucks like you.’

  He knew as well as I did that going to a Swedish hospital was out of the question. Some things took too much explaining. I thought about claiming that it had been a hit-and-run; at least that was consistent with his injuries. But he’d be bedbound for weeks, so however quickly we extracted from this area, we’d still be in the country. And in the shit.

  Right now his job was to stay right where he was. He knew that. He had to hold tight and take the pain until I could get him out of there and work out what to do next.

  ‘Mate, don’t go walkabout, OK?’

  He tried to roll his eyes. ‘As if …’

  The light was fading when I returned with my forked stick, the radio handset and Harry’s daysack, but it was still enough to see that he’d managed to raise himself onto his elbows and got some of the light back in his eyes.

  ‘I’m not going to say sorry again, Nick. I needed him to know it was us.’

  ‘Fair one.’ I tossed the stick onto the Saab’s passenger seat. ‘But do us both a favour, eh? The next time you decide to go on a kamikaze mission, give me some warning. If I’d known what you were up to, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time trying to turn Koureh’s dream house into a party-size Molotov cocktail.’

  ‘There won’t be a next time.’ His lip trembled. ‘The jobs are over, mate. We both know that. ’

  It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him about his six-year-old son, but now wasn’t the time. ‘Let’s worry about that shit later.’

  I zipped up his fleece, shrugged off my bomber and covered his top half with it to try to keep some heat in him.

  ‘Right now I need to sort the Saab and the body. Then I’ll be back with the Merc ASAP to pick you up and reconnect the gas.’

  I pulled out some water before tucking the daysack between the back of his skull and the gravel. ‘I’d light you a Camel, but you know they’re not good for you. You’ll have to make do with some of this instead …’

  When I raised the bottle to his lips, he wasn’t interested.

  ‘No, mate … My drama. I fucked up.’

  I put it down on the gravel beside him in case he changed his mind.

  8

  I ran over to the Saab, triggered the boot release, then hoisted Koureh out of his seat and into the boot. I opened the driver’s door and tried the forked stick for size in the foot-well. Then I got in behind the wheel, shifted into neutral and switched on the engine.

  About fifty metres back along the track there was a turning to the right, which led through the trees to a clearing where we’d left our Danish Merc. By the time I got there it was nearly dark o’clock.

  I parked up and walked to the end of the rocky outcrop, which stood like a diving platform above the edge of the lake. One or two lights glimmered on the far shore.

  When we’d arrived there at midday the water had been crystal clear to a depth of ten metres, yet I still couldn’t see the bottom. It looked like oil now. It seemed a good place for my version of a Viking funeral. Koureh was going to have to do without the flaming longboat and the drinking horns, but he didn’t deserve any of that shit anyway.

  I turned the Saab’s engine on again and reversed about twenty metres. These wagons were front-wheel drive and weighed over a ton, so I needed a bit of a run-up before hitting the launch pad. I put it into second and, keeping my left foot on the clutch and my right on the brake, wedged down the accelerator pedal an inch or two with my stick. Then I lifted both feet, gripped the top of the steering wheel, lifted my arse and stepped back onto the nice soft leather.

  The Saab gave a brief shudder and moved forward, gathering speed. I kept the wheel in place. As soon as I was sure it was going fast enough and wasn’t going to stall, I vaulted sideways over the driver’s door, hit the dirt and rolled. Just not as well as I’d hoped. I’d have a couple of bruises of my own in the morning.


  9

  The exhaust system grated against the rock and the engine whined as the front wheels left the ground and spun freely in the air, but the wagon already had enough momentum to complete its journey.

  I scrambled up in time to see it hit the water, wallow for what seemed like a lifetime in the pale moonlight, then plunge nose first to its grave. Thank fuck Koureh hadn’t gone for the Monte Carlo yellow paintwork option that was all the rage with Saab freaks this year. Steel grey would match the lake bed nicely.

  I kicked over the tyre marks with my Timberlands and rubbed fistfuls of dirt into the scars left by the undercarriage on the rock edge. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do, and we’d be long gone before the local polisen sent in their divers.

  I fired up the Merc and headed back the way I’d come. I stopped short of the house to pick up my daysack. I’d already checked that our scrape was sterile. It wasn’t complicated – we hadn’t even been there long enough to take a shit.

  Before going on round the front to pick Harry up, I folded down the rear seats to leave him as much space as possible. My plan was to put some distance between us and the lake, then get Trev on the net and tell him that Harry needed to be casevaced. I didn’t care what strings the colonel was going to have to pull, or how far I’d have to drive, I just knew that if we put Harry Callard in the care of a Swedish medic our cover would be blown, and if we didn’t, he would never see his son again.

  But for the second time that day, it appeared that Harry had a different plan.

  As I shut the tailgate, there was a lightning flash – the kind that seared white spots on your retinas – followed by the world’s biggest thunderclap, and a pressure wave that blew me off my feet.

  10

  Iraqi troops had set fire to seven hundred oil wells as part of their scorched-earth policy during their retreat from Kuwait in January 1991. We’d seen all that shit happen as our Chinook ferried us across the Iraqi border – pillars of flame reaching into the night sky. Now I knew what it was like to see one up close.