by Chris Ryan
Three minutes later, the Storey Arms slid into view.
Kavlak slowed the Mondeo down to fifteen per and hung a right into the car park. It wasn’t hard to spot the students. They were sat in a big group ten metres or so from the entrance next to the two Land Rovers. The four Bedford army trucks and three Range Rovers were parked up in a line twenty metres or so further along from the students. They sat mostly in silence, some sipping at their brews from their metal mugs. They were soaked to the bone and looked thoroughly miserable. Kavlak smiled to himself. A few minutes now, the rain was going to be the least of their worries.
He pulled up as close as he dared to the students, eight metres from the group. He angled the Mondeo so that the front end was facing away from the students and facing out across the Fan Fawr mountain to the west. He glanced up at the rear-view, checking that the car boot was pointing directly at the students. Eight metres. Close enough to wipe out most of the students, and a good number of the instructors too. He shunted the Mondeo into Park and killed the engine.
Almost there.
He was about to climb out when he saw the instructor marching over. Kavlak clocked him in the rear-view. A short, stumpy Brit with a large birth-mark on one side of his face and tiny black eyes that gleamed menacingly, like the points of a couple of sharpened knives. The instructor beat a path around to the driver’s side of the Mondeo and rapped his knuckles on the window. Kavlak thumbed the automatic slider and lowered the glass halfway. He looked up and smiled. The instructor glared at him. His facial muscles were twitching. He looked pissed off.
‘You can’t park here,’ the instructor said, pointing to the students. ‘This is an army training exercise. Got it? Go a couple of miles down the road. There’s another car park there. You can use that one.’
Kavlak stared blankly at the instructor and shrugged as if to say, No speak English. The instructor gritted his teeth. He leaned through the window, and glared at Kavlak.
‘Are you deaf? I said, move your fucking vehicle.’
Kavlak kept on playing the dumb foreigner, it was a good act. The instructor snorted through his flared nostrils and eventually turned away from the Mondeo. ‘Fucking foreigners,’ he muttered under his breath.
Kavlak watched the instructor as he trooped back over to the students. He looked to Petrovich. The guy had stopped bouncing his knees. He was quiet now as the enormity of what they were about to do finally hit home.
‘Do you remember the plan?’ Kavlak asked.
‘Yes, uncle,’ Petrovich said. ‘Stay calm, act normal and don’t do anything to make the target suspicious.’
‘Good. You’re learning.’ Petrovich smiled warmly at his uncle’s approval. There was hope for him yet. ‘Let’s go.’
They stepped out of the Mondeo into the driving rain. The cold hit Kavlak like a fist. He swung open the rear passenger door and grabbed one of a pair of dark-blue Montane rucksacks stowed in the back seat. Petrovich took the other one. The two Serbs shouldered their rucksacks and strode across the car park towards the main road. Kavlak forced himself to move at a casual pace, ignoring the frantic thumping of his heart. He needn’t have worried. The rucksacks and the walking gear worked perfectly, just as they’d predicted. No one gave the Serbs so much as a second glance. As far as the soldiers were concerned, Kavlak and Petrovich were just another pair of walkers about to begin their early morning pilgrimage up Pen y Fan.
They crossed the road. The wind close to the start of the trail was deafening. Like being in the path of a Boeing 767 cleared for take-off. Once past the red telephone box they moved through the gate and started pounding up the sandstone trail. Kavlak didn’t look back. He forced himself to stare dead. He counted his paces and steadied his breathing. Don’t do anything to drawn attention to yourself.
The trail snaked up a steady incline and dissolved into the mist beyond the wooded area. From the telephone box to the edge of the forest was a distance of roughly a hundred metres. To the right of the track there was a jagged line of conifer trees screening a camping area to the rear of the Storey Arms, some forty metres away.
The two Serbs paced up for sixty metres until they reached a slight curve in the track. Kavlak glanced over his shoulder, checking they were shielded from view of the car park by the treeline. Then he broke off the track and slipped through the treeline and hooked around towards the camping ground. Petrovich followed close behind, the rain spattering against their jackets as they quick-walked past the empty site and the outdoor toilets and approached a door at the rear of the Storey Arms, fifteen metres due south of the wooded area. As they arrived at the door Kavlak paused and glanced back at the track to check no one was watching them. Then he turned and stepped inside.
They entered an unheated room with bare walls and a wrinkled linoleum floor. The air was choked with dust and there was a rank smell of sweat and mould. Petrovich and Stankovic were inside the room, running checks on the various guns laid out on a table in the far corner. Next to the weapons there were six sets of fake passports and matching drivers’ licences, plus six stacks of cash amounting to three thousand pounds each, and Visa credit cards issued to the same names as the fake IDs with £5,000 credit limits. Also, pre-paid Nokia mobile phones plus six AerLingus plane tickets for various flights out of Dublin.
Sixty seconds later, Deeds and Markovic, aka Tank and Goatee, swept through the door.
The pair of them were red-faced and soaked through with sweat from their blistering sprint down the mountain. Deeds unloaded his daysack and threw off his beanie hat. Then he took in a long draw of breath and looked at each of the five Serbs in turn. A smile crawled out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes burned bright with excitement.
‘Okay,’ said Deeds. ‘Let’s fucking do this.’
0715 hours.
Five minutes to go.
ELEVEN
0716 hours.
Porter hurried up the slope. Bald raced after him. They were setting a crazy pace, massacring their legs as they pounded up the trail. They’d cleared the stream at Blaen Taf Fawr six or seven minutes earlier. Now they were tearing up the gradient towards the crest overlooking the Storey Arms. They were a hundred metres from the crest. Porter could hear the blood rushing in his ears above the furious cut and thrust of the wind and rain. A painful stitch was making itself felt down his right side and he could feel his heart beating frantically inside his chest. Porter shoved aside the pain. He thought only of stopping the ramblers.
Ten years ago he’d failed to protect his muckers. Steve, Keith and Mike had died that day. Porter had been paying the price ever since. Ten years of living with the nightmares and the visions. Ten years of feeling the eyes of the dead men boring holes in his back. He wasn’t about to let it happen again.
Not this time. No fucking way.
He upped the pace, surging towards the crest, the stitch feeling like a set of knives twisting inside his obliques. The rain was slicking the ground and making the trail slippery underfoot. Twice Porter almost stacked it as he hurried along. His mind was racing ahead of him. They’d passed the ramblers five or six minutes before they’d discovered Vowden. Which meant the ramblers had a five-minute head start on them. Which meant they might already be too late, Porter realised grimly. They might have already reached the Storey Arms by now. There was nothing for it but to go hell for leather and hope they weren’t out of time.
Fifty metres to the crest. Now forty.
Porter ran on. Questions scratched at the base of his skull. Who the fuck were the shooters, and why had they brassed up Vowden and Skimm in the first place? His first instinct had been that the ramblers were a couple of nutters with a grudge against the Regiment. That had been the big fear of some of the instructors when it came to running Selection exercises in the Brecons. But he dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it entered his mind. The attack had been too well planned. This wasn’t the work of a couple of random crazies listening to the voices inside their heads. The ramblers had been armed
. They’d tabbed up that mountain knowing that Vowden and Skimm would be up there setting up the RV.
So the ramblers must have known that the Fan Dance was happening today, Porter thought to himself. But the only people who knew about the specifics of Selection were the instructors on the Training Wing and the other guys at Hereford. And the students, of course. So where had these ramblers managed to get their int?
Only one way to find out.
He chopped his stride up the last steep section of the incline. He looked over his shoulder. Bald was breathing hard, gasping with the strain. The two Blades had hardly said a word to each other since they’d set off after the ramblers.
‘So much for clearing my fucking head,’ Bald rasped.
‘Hurry it up, Jock. If we catch these bastards, first round’s on me.’
Bald smiled grimly. ‘Now you’re talking my language, mate.’
Porter hit the crest a few strides ahead of his mucker. He willed himself forward, the blood pounding in his veins as they closed in on the final stretch of the trail. Beyond the crest the track dropped down for a kilometre, all the way to the telephone box next to the Storey Arms. The mist had started to clear lower down the slope and Porter could see the land rolling out in front of him. Six hundred metres away Porter spotted the dense wooded area they’d passed on the way up. Beyond the forest, he glimpsed the Storey Arms. A thought flashed up in front of him, and he felt his stomach muscles tighten into a vicious knot.
God, no.
The whole way down Porter had been asking himself why the ramblers had been heading in this direction. If that was me, having just brassed up a couple of operators, I’d be looking to put as much distance between myself and the rest of the SAS as possible, he thought. I sure as fuck wouldn’t leg it down the side of the Fan towards the exact point where the other instructors and students were busy forming up. But now Porter set eyes on the Storey Arms, and he remembered the fleeting movement he’d glimpsed in the first-floor window.
And right there and then, he instinctively knew that whatever he’d seen in the Storey Arms had something to do with the two ramblers and the shooting on top of the Fan. He didn’t know what it was. But his guts told him that if he didn’t hurry up Vowden and Skimm wouldn’t be the only casualties that day.
Porter took a deep breath and charged down the track.
TWELVE
0717 hours.
Three minutes to go.
The six-man team made their final preparations. Weapons were checked. Clips were inserted into mag receivers. Rounds were chambered, charging handles pulled, body armour strapped on and spare clips stashed in pockets where they could be easily accessed. They put on black three-holed ski masks to hide their faces. Each man also pocketed his fake passport, driver’s licence and credit cards, and straps of cash. The IDs had been sourced from a professional art forger called Schmidtt who ran a side business in faked documents. They were the best on the market. Even a seasoned border official wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
The men kept their chatter to a minimum. There was no reason to speak now. Everyone knew their job. There was just the sharp mechanical click and clatter of six men preparing to go to war.
At 0718 hours, Stankovic left the five others and exited the building through the rear door. He stepped out into the camping area immediately behind the Storey Arms, screened from view of the main road and the soldiers resting in the car park. In his right hand Stankovic carried a juice bottle filled with half liquid soap flakes and half petrol. In his left hand, he carried a large gym bag filled with half a dozen pairs of trousers and shirts and shoes. The clean clothes were for changing into once they’d bugged out of the Brecons and reached the RV at Merthyr Tydfil. The juice bottle was for torching the van, their old clothes and weapons, erasing any trace of the six men.
Stankovic paced round the back of the Storey Arms and made a beeline for the small parking area to the side of the building, fifty metres to the east. Several wheelie bins were racked up like bowling pins across the back of the blacktop, next to a Transit van. The Transit was one of the new models with the 2.5-litre diesel engine and the curved-box design. It had been paid for in cash and the plates were clean. Stankovic swung around to the back of the van. He popped open the back doors, dumped the gym bag and the juice bottle in the back. Closed the doors, paced around to the driver’s side door and climbed behind the wheel. Shoved the key in the ignition, gripped the wheel, and waited.
At 0719 hours, Bill Deeds and the other four guys made their way to the front door. Even Kavlak started to feel nervous now. He could sense the invisible rope tightening around his chest, the sweat leaking out of his palms. The men formed up either side of the door. Kavlak and Petrovich to the right, Markovic, Dragan and Deeds to the left. In addition to his AK-47 and Glock-17, Kavlak carried a set of portable traffic spikes to lay across the road and delay the cops. He set down the spikes and checked his watch.
Twenty seconds to go.
Petrovich was anxious. The assault rifle was shaking in his grip. It was time for his nephew to man the fuck up, Kavlak decided. Time to stop pretending to kill people in video games, and do it for real. To show that he was worthy of being in the gang. He dug out the remote-controlled detonator from his pocket and offered it to Petrovich. The kid froze, not comprehending.
The dumb fuck.
‘Uncle?’
‘Here,’ said Kavlak. ‘You do the honours.’
Petrovich didn’t move. He swallowed hard and looked wide-eyed at the walkie-talkie, breathing hard inside his mask. ‘Me? But shouldn’t someone with experience do it, uncle? Why not Dragan? Or you?’
Kavlak sighed. ‘Do you like fucking, nephew?’
Petrovich nodded obediently. Like a dog. ‘Yes, uncle.’
‘Then press the damn button, and tonight you’ll have the greatest fuck of your life. This much I promise you.’
Petrovich stayed very still for a moment. Kavlak could see his eyes working furiously behind his mask, trying to build himself up to the moment. His shoulders were pumping furiously up and down with the tension. He reluctantly took the detonator. His thumb hovered over the Push-to-Talk button. Kavlak checked his watch.
Ten seconds.
‘Do it,’ he urged. ‘Become a man.’
Petrovich still hesitated. He kept staring at the walkie-talkie. The other four guys watched him in stony silence. Kavlak could see his nephew’s thumb shaking.
Five seconds.
Four. Three.
Two seconds.
‘Now!’ Kavlak urged.
Petrovich closed his eyes, breathing hard.
Then he pushed the button.
THIRTEEN
0720 hours.
Joe Kinsella didn’t hear the bomb.
He was sitting on his Bergen amongst the other students, shivering cold and soaked through to the bone, nursing a hot brew. He was listening to Stubbs tell another one of his naff jokes and pretending to laugh. He was trying hard not to show his nerves. He was trying not to think about the excruciating pain from his blistered feet.
Ten metres behind him, a radio receiver unit in the boot of the Ford Mondeo picked up a signal from the direction of the Storey Arms and ignited the det cord. A split second later, the C4 exploded. There was a momentary flash of hot white light that blinded Kinsella. In the next instant he was thrown back by a scorching hot blast of wind and smoke, burning his hair and flesh and crushing his rib cage like a fist closing in around an empty Coke can. Then the smoke and the heat roared over him, hurling him off his feet, and as the flames engulfed Joe Kinsella his last thought was, God help me.
Then nothing.
Porter was three hundred metres away when he heard the blast. A distinct whump, followed by a low angry rumble that shuddered like thunder across the mountain. Bright orange flames spewed into the sky high above the car park, like a flare stack on an oil rig. Fists of thick smoke mushroomed out of the flames, throwing up a million pieces of debris and sh
rapnel. Behind the roar of the outward explosion and the clatter of the falling debris, Porter heard a scream.
He stood rooted to the spot next to Bald for a cold moment, his breath trapped deep in his throat. Like someone had pulled a noose tight around his neck. Everything seemed surreal. He looked on in disbelief at the tendrils of smoke billowing up into the air, raining down debris across the road like ash pouring down from an erupting volcano. Two cars had been gliding down the main road, coming from the west. From the direction of Brecon. They were fifty metres away when the bomb kicked off. The lead car hit the brakes and skidded to a halt in front of the explosion. The rear motor was too late. It slammed into the saloon’s rear bumper in the middle of the road. Glass shattered. Car alarms wailed.
‘Jesus,’ Bald whispered at his side. ‘Jesus Christ. Oh, fuck.’
This can’t be happening, Porter kept thinking, over and over.
This can’t be fucking happening.
Then the realisation hit him, like a fist to the guts. Car bomb. Had to be. Nothing else could cause a bang like that, Porter knew. He’d seen dozens of the fuckers detonate during the time he’d spent serving in Northern Ireland. Someone’s just detonated a car bomb in the middle of Selection, he realised. The Regiment’s been hit.
We’re under attack.
Porter shook his head clear. His training instincts suddenly kicked in. Ten years as an SAS operator, his reactions to danger were hardwired into his muscle memory and he knew instantly what he had to do. Get to the bomb site, assess the situation and send for help for the soldiers. The ones who weren’t already dead. The thought flashed across his mind that the fuckers responsible for this might still be nearby. And at least two of them – the ramblers – were armed. And I don’t even have a pistol. But Porter couldn’t worry about that now. His mates needed him.