by Andy McNab
I’d stick my neck out as long as I could bear it.
We were fast running out of daylight by the time I reached the start line of my forty-metre dash, but there was now enough of the white stuff on the ground to give my sniper mate a big green dot to aim at, thermal imaging or not. In these conditions I’d never know how close his misses were, unless they zinged past my ear. But so what? A miss was a miss.
I was no Usain Bolt, but I took off for the ridge good style.
After twenty-five metres I felt I’d hit my stride.
After thirty-five a searing pain wiped out my leading ankle and I was hurled sideways, like a sack of shit.
12
I had no idea whether my ankle could hold my weight, but wriggling the last five metres to the ridge on my belt buckle was not an option. At least I knew it hadn’t been on the receiving end of a polymer tip. If it had, there’d be nothing left of me beyond a soggy stump at the southern end of my gaiter.
All I’d done was hit a baby’s head at a bad angle, and rolled.
As I reached forward to haul myself up, my eyes were still close enough to the ground to see another tussock disintegrate in front of me. It was all the encouragement I needed. Crouching low, I angled right, then left, then right again, scrambling like a prop forward through the opposition on a wet day at Huddersfield. I don’t know if it made me a more difficult target, but it was good for morale, and when I dived over the ridge I felt the kind of elation I guessed a rugby player must have felt when he crossed the try line seconds before the final whistle.
I gave myself a minute or two to catch my breath and flex my ankle. As soon as I knew it was in reasonable working order – no sprain, no snapped tendons – it was time to move on.
Fuck knows why, but I once let a shrink wire me up to some magic piece of machinery – the all-singing, all-dancing version of a lie-detector – and try to put me through the mental wringer. He used every trick in the audio-visual book, from showing me pictures of people being chopped up with machetes to the kind of porn films they screen 24/7 in German hotel rooms.
My vital signs had hardly fluctuated.
In any situation that demanded my full concentration, I routinely tuned out any external interference, but I allowed his conclusion to filter through right now because it always made me smile. ‘You’re a psychopath, Mr Stone. But in a good way.’
Hot on their heels, Anna’s words also echoed in my mind, what she’d said about me not looking for a fight.
Well, I was looking for one now.
I reckoned Sniper One still wouldn’t break cover until he had to. Neither would he be staying where he was on the off-chance I’d suddenly pop back into view like a fairground target and invite him to have another crack at me.
He’d be busy hoisting the weapon’s sling over his shoulder and looking forward to hosing me down at the first opportunity. But now I had two advantages: it was dark, and I knew where I was going. I reckoned I’d have an hour at the Bolthole before he caught up with me.
I tabbed rapidly towards the gully, the gorse scratching against my gaiters. The ankle wasn’t in peak physical condition after my tumble, but the pain was nothing to shout about. The snow was deeper now that it wasn’t being blown straight off the hill, but easy enough to walk through. I had to exercise a bit of caution about the terrain beneath it. I wouldn’t worry about leaving a trail until after I’d prepared my killing area.
There were no straight lines here, so I left the NVGs in my daysack for now, and didn’t waste time and energy looking back over my shoulder. If he’d made distance and closed up enough to take a shot, I’d soon know about it.
The ambient temperature was a few precious degrees warmer in the lee of the ridge, and the further I went, the more my plan came together in my head.
The top of the gully was funnel-shaped, and led to a group of bare rocks the size of standing stones, but more haphazardly arranged. The one on the right was at least twice my height, and stood proud of the hill. The two to its left leaned against each other, as if they were on the way home from a great night out and hoping to bump into a kebab shop. These were the legs of our elephant.
Though it wasn’t visible right now – since snow had drifted across it – the entrance to Trev’s cave lay between them.
13
I unslung my daysack. The white stuff was pretty fresh, so my first task was to make it more compact. I pulled out the shovel, unfolded its handle and shaft and gave the whole area around the base of the stones a good smacking with the blade.
When it was a bit more solid, I dug a nice hole, as low as I could because heat rises, packing the sides as I went, until I no longer felt any resistance. I slid in feet first, dragging the rest of my kit behind me.
I didn’t want to draw attention to my hideaway yet, but fucking about in the dark was going to waste too much time. I shut my dominant eye to avoid completely destroying my night vision, powered up the torch app on my iPhone without looking at it directly with my open eye, and had a scout around.
Nothing much had changed – but, then, I hardly expected the local council to have called the decorators in. There were a few empty Red Bull cans, some discarded food packaging and a pile of slightly charred kindling.
I emptied the daysack and bulked it out with the packaging, cans and some of the sticks. I put the stove and mess tin on the ground, laid out six hexy blocks on each, then piled their waxed cardboard boxes and every bit of kindling I could find on top of them. Hexamine was toxic when it burned, so it wasn’t designed for use in confined spaces, but I wasn’t planning to stay.
I got some more water down my neck along with a power bar to boost my blood-sugar level. Then I put a match to my little hexy bonfires. Once they’d caught, I put my iPhone back in my pocket and brought out the G3. Satisfied that it still had a strong enough signal, I selected its loudest and most irritating ring-tone and left it on top of my daysack, a couple of feet inside the entrance to the cave.
I strapped the NVGs to my forehead but didn’t lower the eye-cups. Like most military kit, the PVS-7 was designed to perform in extreme environments, so a cold night out in the wilds of Welsh Wales wasn’t going to throw it into a spin.
I fastened the crampons to the soles of my Timberlands, grabbed the ice axe and the shovel and crawled back through my tunnel. I opened my dominant eye as soon as I was outside and moved immediately to my left. I didn’t want to be silhouetted against the glow from the snow-hole for any longer than I had to be.
When I’d reached the far side of the tallest of the stones, using what was left of my night vision to smooth over my tracks as I went, I climbed straight up the hill and tucked myself behind it, to prepare for what I hoped might happen next.
14
I put the shovel aside and stamped the snow flat behind the rock until I had a firm platform from which to operate, then pulled down the NVGs, switched them onto infrared and adjusted the focus and intensity of the image.
AN/PVS-7s were standard issue for US land forces, and it didn’t take long to see why. With little ambient light but a dramatic contrast between the snow-covered ground and the shadow of the rocks and trees, it was as if my immediate surroundings had been transformed into a vivid black-and-white movie that someone had washed with green.
Back in the day, the principal problem with these things, apart from their weight, was that any bright flash would trigger a complete whiteout on your retinas. Now anything less than a mega candlepower spotlight would just look like a budget-size UFO. And I didn’t expect Sniper One to be carrying a mega candlepower spotlight as well as a big fuck-off weapon.
I eased the monocle around the inside flank of the rock, until I had as clear a view of the gully as possible without emerging from cover. A roe deer materialized thirty metres away and stood stock still. For a moment, as the flakes danced around her, it was as if she was posing at the centre of her very own snow globe. Then she pricked up her ears, glanced rapidly left and right, and took off tow
ards the ridge. She’d caught either my scent or somebody else’s.
I ducked back out of sight and gripped the shaft of the ice axe with both hands, testing for weight and balance before putting it down within easy reach.
The next time I looked, my pursuer had emerged from behind the flank of the hill. I didn’t have time to take in every detail of his waterproof clothing and equipment, but I didn’t need to. All that mattered was the weapon he carried.
The largest arms manufacturer in the former Soviet Republic was an outfit called OSJC ‘IZHMASH’, founded by Tsar Alexander I in 1807. Their plant at Izhevsk had turned out more than eleven million rifles and carbines during the Second World War. It was still the proud producer of the Kalashnikov AK-47 and the Warsaw Pact sniper’s favourite, the Dragunov SVD.
These things weren’t as well engineered as the Winchester or the Remington and didn’t guarantee their pinpoint accuracy, but in the right hands they could do some serious damage. I had the feeling that this one – an SVDS with folding stock extended – was in the right hands now.
15
He spotted the glow from the Bolthole immediately, and got the butt in his shoulder as he advanced.
I stepped back, removed my left glove and powered up the iPhone again, shielding its glow in my right palm. I pressed ‘A’ once, then the stop bar the moment I heard the G3 ring.
A nanosecond later I heard nine rounds being pumped into the mouth of the cave, followed by the distinctive metallic clicks of a mag being removed and replaced while he still had a round in the chamber. Good skills. This lad wasn’t fucking about.
The silence returned.
Even the wind seemed to stop and wait for his next move.
Then footsteps crunched towards me through the snow.
Going into slow-mo, I slid the NVGs carefully off my head and put them down beside the shovel, pocketed the iPhone and pulled on my glove. Taking a deep breath to oxygenate myself for the drama ahead, I retrieved the ice axe and rose to my feet.
The crunch rate slowed and began to sound more cautious, but Sniper One kept on coming.
I heard his waterproofs rustle as he moved.
He’d keep his SVD in the aim – no way would that butt be taken out of the shoulder now. Finger pad on the trigger. Safety lever down and off. Eyes flicking left and right as he advanced towards his target.
He’d kick my beautifully sculpted snow tunnel apart with his boot. Then he’d have to stoop down to look inside. That was the moment I wanted to be on top of him. Give him no time to react. No room to move.
It wouldn’t take him long to discover that he’d emptied his magazine into my daysack. But by then his night vision should be well and truly nailed by the hexamine blaze. Even if it wasn’t, I’d have to crack on and take him, to render his rifle a whole lot less effective than it had been when Trev’s eyebrows were at the centre of the optic.
The crunches came to a halt.
I flexed my finger muscles, closed both hands over the grip of my ice axe and bent my knees. As soon as he leaned down to inspect what lay behind the entrance, he was mine.
I could hear him breathe.
He was at the mouth of the cave.
I stepped out, axe raised above my head, eyes focused on the space between his shoulder-blades as he crouched below me.
The almost subliminal clink of crampon on rock and the sixth sense shared by every hunter in the universe made him look up before my feet had left the ledge.
He threw himself sideways and tried to roll away before I could swing the pick down – tried to get out of my range, heave his barrel up and get a round into me. But it wasn’t working.
My crampons dug into the snow. I zeroed in on his centre mass and cannoned into him. I wasn’t aiming my weapon with any precision. All I wanted to do was drive four or five inches of sharpened metal into him as far as I could and take it from there.
I managed to make contact. With all the movement going on beneath me, I couldn’t immediately tell where the pointy bit had connected, but I felt it tear into flesh and muscle and the shaft juddered as I raked it up his spine. He grunted or cursed and twisted away, wrenching himself clear of my ice axe and putting some space between us. Blood glistened around a big tear in his waterproof top.
I raised the pick above my head for a repeat performance as he turned towards me again. The pain must have been outrageous, but it didn’t seem to register. He kept on coming, filling the air with the stench of garlic, sour cabbage, untipped cigarettes and unbrushed teeth with every tortured breath.
His neck muscles tautened as he strained to bring up the Dragunov’s muzzle so he could blast a hole in my chest, and I suddenly knew beyond any doubt that he was going to do it before I could bring my weapon down again.
I let go of the grip with my left hand and kicked out. I missed the barrel but connected strongly enough with his arm to shunt the muzzle off at an angle.
I felt the round before I heard it. It kicked off millimetres away from my right cheek, smashed the ice axe out of my hand and sent shock waves along my arm. The impact propelled me backwards but I somehow managed to stay upright. I knew that if I went down now, it was over.
I was fresh out of options as he brought the weapon back up. All I could do now was take one step forward and launch myself at him, feet first.
My right crampon caught him in the gut. I felt its claws rip into him, but he just took the pain. My left crampon clattered against gunmetal. Without any purchase, I lost my balance and had to jerk back and plant it in the snow again to stop myself falling.
Its claws were too short to puncture an organ, so I raised my right foot and stamped on his face instead. I channelled my entire bodyweight through that one leg and kept it there. He finally let go of the Dragunov and grabbed my ankle, but instead of dislodging my boot he forced its metal sole to grate against his jawbone. His flesh fell away like raw meat spilling from a mincer.
He bucked and heaved and flailed his arms, fingers scrabbling to reclaim his rifle. I kept my right foot in place and skewered his neck with the left. For a moment I didn’t think that was going to stop him either.
His lips peeled back in a ferocious snarl, but blood gushed from his mouth instead of sound. He arched his back and shuddered, like he’d chewed on a power cable, then lay very still.
16
I fetched the Dragunov and pushed up the safety lever on its right-hand side, then removed my gloves and went through Sniper One’s pockets. I didn’t expect to find anything, and I wasn’t wrong. Apart from a half-empty packet of dextrose tablets and two hundred and fifty quid or so in well-used notes poking out of a money clip, they were empty.
I kept the cash and powered up the torch app on my iPhone so I could take a closer look at him. You’re never at your best when your face has been rearranged by a set of crampons, but even on a good day this guy wouldn’t have turned heads on the catwalk. If he had done, he’d have had to choose a different line of work. Snipers and surveillance operators aren’t supposed to stand out in a crowd. With his closely cropped hair, broken nose and cold grey eyes this lad was every bit as forgettable as I was. And we pretty much shared the same tailor.
I unzipped his waterproof top and wrenched open the layers of fleece and thermal kit beneath it. There were no coal-dust tattoos telling the story of his life – just the sculpted pecs of a man who took his fitness seriously.
Then I caught sight of something on his neck. At first glance I assumed the crimson splash was blood or possibly a birthmark. When I turned his head and ran the beam beneath his shattered jaw I realized it was neither.
This was quality ink work, somewhere between a starburst and a multi-leaf clover. It reminded me of the so-called roses that decorated the roads and pavements of Sarajevo when the locals had filled the Serb mortar scars with red resin to honour their dead.
Well, I wasn’t in the mood to honour this fucker. I put my gloves back on, grabbed him by the legs and dragged his body into the Bolthole
, leaving a trail of dark red deoxygenated blood on the snow. I sat him against the rock wall and reunited him with his Dragunov in the flickering light of my hexy bonfire.
As soon as the weather cleared and the ramblers got back into their anoraks, this area would turn into a major crime scene. I needed to make distance.
17
I legged it back to St Ellyw’s as quickly as possible after picking up what was left of my kit.
The daysack had been well ventilated, but it would live to fight another day. The Samsung G3 had been terminated with extreme prejudice, along with the chicken casserole MRE pack. The manufacturers insisted these things could survive a 380-metre drop, but a blast of 7.62 was more than it could handle. The hotpot was miraculously unscathed.
I picked up the Defender of the Faith way after midnight, as another wave of snow began its assault. All sign would have been covered on the hill by now.
I headed west past Brecon until I found a couple of artics parked up in a layby and joined them. I left the engine on and the heater running while I warmed Trev’s hotpot in its FRH (flameless ration heater) pouch. MREs weren’t everybody’s favourite snack – as squaddies we’d called them Meals Refusing to Exit – but after freezing my arse off in the Black Mountains it ticked all the boxes. It also gave me something to munch as I thought about my next move.
If Trev was right about the Head Shed killing their own, I had to ID who was loading the rounds. So the first step was to try to find out why. And since none of us knew who we could trust, I had to be more careful than he had been about the questions I needed to ask – and about selecting the people I could look to for answers.
Harry’s boy was clearly off limits, so I had to go a few different routes. And I didn’t have much time. I hadn’t broadcast my presence back in the UK, but I reckoned it wouldn’t be long before whoever had wanted Trev dead managed to put two and two together and come after me.