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Kashmir Rescue
Doug Armstrong


Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to storm a terrorist stronghold in the mountains of Pakistan?For Captain Don Headley of the SAS, the police anti-terrorist exercise on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport was to have been just another training job. But in the grey suburban sprawl on the edge of London another, far more sinister plot is about to unfold, a plot that sees him dispatched on a hostage-rescue mission to the Indian subcontinent.Under the patronage of inscrutable Intelligence chief Sir Anthony Briggs, the operation reunites him with some of the hardest troopers from Hereford, for only such a hand-picked team is capable of storming a terrorist stronghold in the mountains of Pakistan. And only the very best will have a chance of coming back alive.Central to the mission is the mysterious Mr Sanji. It is at the cost of precious lives that Don and his men will learn the horrific secret of this world-weary old man – and understand that the roots of the kidnap plot lie buried in the dying days of the British Raj.
















Kashmir Rescue


DOUG ARMSTRONG







Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain as Operation Takeaway by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1996

Copyright В© Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1996

Cover layout design В© HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Cover photographs В© Nik Keevil/Arcangel Images (soldiers); Shutterstock.com (textures)

Doug Armstrong asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155483

Ebook Edition В© December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155490

Version: 2015-11-02


Contents

Cover (#ud832530b-0dcb-5f8f-ae78-45e7fa988373)

Title Page (#ua4077df6-edd3-57af-b393-1fade9148690)

Copyright (#u32b0577c-9b75-57e0-bec8-9de15e5e35f2)

Chapter 1 (#u7221a700-9488-53d6-b6b1-071e8042998d)

Chapter 2 (#u2e9a893a-8d98-5212-ab49-9a62c719a64f)

Chapter 3 (#u6574062f-c303-5775-9187-572bda6e9cff)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)



Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)



OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES (#litres_trial_promo)



About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




1 (#u58748eb0-1eab-5ca3-b26f-222421e3de55)


There were many kinds of exile. The old man realized that now. In fact, he wondered whether he had been unfortunate enough to experience them all in the course of his long life. As he ambled along the pavement bordering the busy road, the surface glistening with drizzle, he hunched his shoulders into the motionless cold and found himself thinking of his boyhood. That had been the first one. When he had been very small he had never been able to work out why he was exiled from the company of the other boys in his neighbourhood. Of course, he had heard the rumours of his parents, uncles and aunts, all speaking of Hindus and Muslims, and on holy days he saw how his own family went to pray at a different temple from the one attended by the other people in their street.

A passing lorry sprayed him with a fine film of muddy water as it shot by, heading south for the junction of the M4, which would already be thickening with traffic, even at such an early hour. By 9 a.m. it would have ground to a virtual standstill, clogged like an artery, the flow gradually stiffening to a halt in the moments before his death.

He hated his new country. He still thought of it as new, even though he had left the land of his birth nearly fifty years before. That had been another exile, more obvious than his boyhood solitude but stifling and bitter nonetheless. He looked around at the grey, sullen landscape of concrete, tarmac and red brick. It was barely light, and every house was closed as tight as a fist. Their owners had made pitiful attempts to differentiate their property from the one next door: a glass panel, the colour of woodwork, a cursory stab at flamboyance with a winding pathway. More noticeable, however, were the similarities, apart from the most obvious one of the houses’ identical design: a front garden concreted over to provide parking for a clutch of cars; burglar alarms to keep at bay the increasing number of have-nots; and the satellite dish clinging under the miserly eaves like an extraterrestrial orchid, its brainwashing duties long completed but still reflexively cleansing the occupants of original thought.

The bench he usually rested on had been vandalized in the night. He stood before it, surveying the efforts of the mental giant who had spray-painted a swastika and racist slogans across the seat.

�If only I could go home,’ he muttered to himself as he read the misspelt words. �If only I could.’

He tested the paint with one cautious fingertip, and finding it dry, eased himself down, feeling a stab of satisfaction as his buttocks pressed into the swastika. He wondered briefly if the youth had been aware of the symbol’s Indian origins. He smiled at the irony and took out a cigarette.

Against the background noise from the motorway he could hear the car alarms starting to go off around the district, each one welcoming its owner with the faithfulness of a dog, bleating an answering toot as a keyring was fired at it. Soon their drivers would be sitting in traffic jams and feeling the tension knot in the solar plexus at the prospect of being late for work.

The old man sat back and drew on his cigarette, glad to be out of it all, yet unable to resist the slightest twinge of regret that his own participation in the conduct of life was at an end. He had never become used to retirement, another one of the many exiles. Had his wife still been alive there might have been some solace in the spread of empty hours that extended from dawn to dusk. But she was dead – yet one more exile that he mentally ticked off on the tally he kept.

A growing roar overhead heralded the approach of the first morning flight into Heathrow. Moments later the fat silver fuselage broke through the low, swirling clouds like a bloated fly, sinking down to settle on a new-found corpse. The old man smiled grimly. He had seen plenty of those in his time. Too many. But that was all such a long time ago. He wondered sometimes if it had been a dream. Nightmare might be a better description.

He watched the plane disappear behind a prim row of houses, its great belly touching down out of sight on the soaking runway. The day had begun pretty much like every other since he had arrived in Britain. Perhaps later on he would go to the temple near his home in Southall, but he never knew whether or not he would actually go inside until he was mounting the steps and walking through the tinsel-adorned entrance hall. More often than not he simply passed by, unable to drum up the courage to face his conscience. He didn’t believe in the gods any more. That had died a long time ago, but the temple had proved to be a place of brutally frank reflection and of late he found he preferred the cinema.

When he had finished the cigarette he contemplated smoking another but decided instead to heed his doctor’s warning and cut down. By evening he would have finished the packet which had been new when he had got out of bed, unable to sleep, to dress and set off on his walk.

So how would he spend the day? He could go and visit any one of the restaurants, but then his son-in-law would think he was interfering and by midday his daughter would be on the phone, whining at him to give them space. They were so bloody sensitive, the younger generation. They had no concept of respect. All they thought about was themselves and their own selfish fulfilment. Self-sacrifice was an unknown land, and the notion that age had a certain wisdom to offer was as alien as the other planets.

If not the restaurants, what then? He was beginning to regret handing over the management of his little empire to his son-in-law. But he had to admit that the lad had improved their efficiency more than he would have thought possible. He was always spouting the jargon gleaned from the MBA course he had attended after university. �Total quality management’, �customer care’ – stuff like that. In the old man’s day it had been enough simply to be the best in the neighbourhood, to crush the opposition by fair means or foul and fill the resulting power vacuum. Now it was all graphs and figures. There didn’t seem to be any room for intuition.

He pushed himself off the bench and set off for home. As he walked the drizzle began to harden into rain and he cursed himself for not taking his umbrella. He was a creature of habit and always liked to return by a roundabout route past the cinema, but as he felt the sting of cold water lash against his cheeks he decided to go back the way he had come, taking the shorter path through the park. �Park’ was a grand description for a miserable patch of grass, largely trampled to mud at this time of year. From the far side a narrow path crept between the side of an old Victorian terraced house and a row of fenced-off garages, beyond which a single road cut in front of his own house. He glanced at his watch, trying to shield the glass from the rain. It would take him at least fifteen minutes, enough time to get thoroughly soaked. Perhaps he would go back to bed once he got home. That would solve the problem of what to do with himself. But no. That way lay a quick death. He would take to his bed only when he knew his end was near, and not before.

He approached a row of shops. Built in the early 1960s, they exuded all the charm and grace of an empty cornflakes packet. White wooden boards coated the upper floor and the lettering identifying each of the shops was in stark black plastic, the occasional letter missing. There was a launderette, a newsagent who served also as confectioner and postmaster, a greengrocer, a hairdresser and a chemist, every one of them Indian. It was extraordinary, the old man reflected. If their noble ancestors could see them now and witness what they had become, making their living in such an unpleasant foreign land. They had forsaken the wide, sweeping continent of their forebears, the ancient land of gods and sagas, of princes, fables and legends, to retreat to a dank, miserable corner of the globe that had been civilized for barely a millennium.

The newsagent was winding up his metal blinds and squinted suspiciously at the old man in the gloom.

�You should keep your spectacles on,’ the old man called across. �One day you’ll be robbed.’

The newsagent grinned with relief as he recognised the old man’s voice. �You’re up early, Mr Sanji.’

�As ever, as ever,’ the old man said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

�You should get some sleeping pills from Dr Gupta.’

�Why hasten matters? We’ll all be sleeping soon enough, and for as long as any man could wish.’

The newsagent shook his head in bemusement. �You are always joking, Mr Sanji. Always joking.’ He went inside and reappeared seconds later with a paper. �Do you want to take this with you?’ he asked. �You know what that delivery boy is like. Quite, quite useless. Always late, always idling.’

The old man nodded appreciatively and accepted the paper, glancing briefly at the headlines and then folding it away inside his coat out of the rain. �Thank you. I expect it’s all bad news anyway.’

Chuckling to himself, the newsagent wagged a finger at him and went inside. A moment later there was the flicker of neon and the inside of the shop was illuminated in the garish whiteness. The old man walked on.

By the time he reached the edge of the park the rain had become too heavy for him to ignore it. For a moment he toyed with the idea of pressing on and accepting the inevitable drenching, but his daughter would scream with horror at the sight of him and then fuss for the rest of the day. His son-in-law would likewise protest, but more from a sense of good manners. In his heart, the old man knew, his son-in-law would be wishing upon him a speedy death by pneumonia. There was no love lost between them. Politeness concealed their mutual hatred.

The entrance porch to an old church provided partial shelter from the rain. The old man squeezed up against the shuttered door and turned up his collar, but the rain slanted in, soaking the toes of his shoes. He turned them in like a pigeon but the water still found them, feasting on the cheap leather until he felt it penetrating to his socks. Strangely, the cold moistness between his toes reminded him of walking barefoot as a boy during the monsoons in the backstreets of Delhi. It was comforting now, knowing that warmth and proper shelter were a short distance away. Not that he had been deprived as a child. But confronted with the poverty of others, he had never felt the security he now took for granted.

Up above, the grey sky was lightening almost imperceptibly. Great swathes of cloud banked and rolled overhead, seeming so close he felt he could reach out and touch them. Another jet loomed out of the sky, the undercarriage down, lights blinking at the wingtips. Inside, he could imagine the passengers tut-tutting at the British weather, peering grimly through the thick windows at the disastrous-looking scene beneath them. The pilot would perhaps have made an attempt at humour and would now be concentrating on the path of lights before him, peeling open as he steadied the aircraft into its lowering approach run, and, perched on their seats, the stewardesses would be touching up lipstick and eye-shadow in readiness for the chorus of farewells by the exit door.

However dark the sky, when he looked back at the surrounding streets the old man felt as if night had fallen again by comparison. It seemed there was not going to be any let-up in the rain and suddenly he felt exasperated at the delay. It was so pointless. So much was pointless these days. He stepped out of the porch and set off as briskly as he could towards the park entrance, darting across the street and passing between the bent railings and the notice warning of the fine for owners who allowed their dogs to foul the pathways. Pointless.

The next instant he thought of his granddaughter and smiled. She at least gave some meaning to his life. She at least would be bright on this dismal, depressing day. But even there all was far from perfect. Her parents had consented to her wishes to be allowed to go to university. The old man had protested. Eli was the delight of his old age, he had said. Her place was at his side. Naturally it had been his son-in-law who had countermanded his order. Theirs was a modern family, he said proudly, not bound by the traditions of the past. Eli would go to university and that was an end to it.

Of course the old man knew that his son-in-law didn’t care a jot for his daughter’s emancipation. He was simply taking delight in thwarting the old man and depriving him of the only pleasure he had left. But Eli had come to see him and had promised to write at least once a week, and deep down he realized that, however much he resented it, the times had changed. He would be the last one to hold her back. They would see how modern and British his son-in-law was when Eli came back one weekend and announced her own choice of husband. The old man could well imagine the uproar that would create, and then he would be the one to support her decision. Then he would delight in the torment of his son-in-law.

He was about to emerge from the path at the far side of the park when he noticed the car. The windows were clouded with mist and it was impossible to recognize the people inside. He could just make out two figures, both in front. It was some kind of Ford, cheap-looking and obviously an unmarked police car. He smiled to himself. Perhaps his son-in-law had been cooking the books as well as the curry and the Inland Revenue was about to haul him away for interrogation. The old man prayed it would be a long and brutal affair.

More likely, he imagined, it was part of another of the anti-terrorist exercises that the police conducted from time to time on the outskirts of the airport. The idiots had left their windows tightly shut and the engine and heater turned off, until the car looked as though it had just been removed from a giant fridge. They couldn’t possibly see through the glass. The buzz and hiss of a radio receiver from inside the car confirmed his suspicion that they were policemen. He sighed and started towards the park exit.

The sound of another engine stopped him. Although he had nothing to fear from the police, having always kept out of trouble, he drew aside into the inadequate cover of the scrawny bush and watched, more out of idle curiosity than anything else. Sure enough, the grubby white Ford Transit that cruised slowly round the corner at the top of the road seemed to be involved in the same exercise. Unlike the car’s occupants, the driver of the van had kept the windows clear, and the old man could see the face peering at the houses as if searching for a particular number.

A cold drop of rain found its way down the old man’s neck and tumbled down his spine, but the shiver that wriggled through his bones was caused by something altogether different. The van had stopped outside his own house, and through the back of the vehicle he could just see another man leaning over the driver’s shoulder. They appeared to be arguing, and behind them he could make out other figures, perhaps half a dozen in all.

He looked anxiously at the unmarked police car again. What was going on? Perhaps he hadn’t been so far from the truth about his son-in-law after all. But there was something very wrong, although he couldn’t put his finger on it. For a moment he considered crossing the road and going straight indoors, ignoring the police and leaving them to get on with their exercise. But before he could move he heard the rear doors of the van opening and the sound of booted feet jumping to the ground. He watched in horror as the men moved purposefully towards his house and went to the front door, three of them striding down the pathway and the other four or five jogging down the drive. He almost cried out as one of them kicked open the side gate and disappeared towards the kitchen door, which gave on to the back garden.

In the police car the figures didn’t move. Then one of them leaned forward and scrubbed a hole in the mist. Through the circle of misted breath the old man could see the surprise on the face and with another bolt of horror he realized that though they were indeed most likely policemen, they were nothing to do with the intruders breaking into his house.

He looked back at the van, where the man next to the driver was stepping on to the road. The engine was still ticking over and the man signalled for the driver to gun the accelerator and prepare for a speedy departure. Until then his face had been turned away from the park, but as the man gave the order to the driver, the old man saw him clearly and his heart missed a beat. There was something about the features that alerted him to the man’s lineage. He had hoped to have done with the lot of them but it was obviously not to be. After all these years they had found him at last. Now it would begin all over again.

�Was that you?’

Colin Field grinned sheepishly. �Sorry. It was that curry last night.’

�Jesus Christ.’ Paul Robins screwed up his face and opened the car window a crack. Instantly a gust of frosty, damp air buffeted its way in, relieving the strain on his nose but reminding him that they had been freezing all night in an unheated vehicle. Reluctantly he closed the window again.

�What a bloody night.’ He reached for the glove compartment and hunted around until he found his pack of cigarettes. It was empty. He scrunched it up and tossed it over his shoulder on to the back seat.

�What time do we finish?’ Colin asked.

�Don’t ask me. Ask that pan-faced git from Hereford. He’s supposed to be running the package.’

�Do you reckon he’ll give us the run-around again? You know, pretend the exercise has ended and then fuck us off to another task?’

�If he does I’ll tell the force they can stick their sodding job. I’ll volunteer to go back on the beat and leave special duties to heroes like you.’

Colin nodded sagely. �Beats me why our own training organization can’t run the course. Why do they have to bring in outsiders?’

�Haven’t you heard? They’re sodding bloody supermen. I guess the boss is hoping some of it’ll rub off on us.’ He stared hard at Colin, appraising him. �Some bloody hope.’

�Here, what do you mean?’ Colin asked, an expression of confused hurt on his face.

�Nothing.’ Paul decided it was best to let it go. They had already had a couple of set-tos during the night and with tempers frayed from lack of sleep he could do without another. Colin eased sideways on his seat cushion and Paul noticed the tell-tale signs. �Don’t you bloody dare!’

�Give us a break. It’s either this or I’ll have gut-ache for the rest of the day.’

�Make it gut-ache then, but one more of those and you’re out in the rain.’

Muttering under his breath Colin sat upright. He looked at his watch. �Couldn’t we call in? Perhaps the ex is over and they’ve forgotten to tell us.’

Paul laughed. �Don’t be a bigger dick than you already are. Can you imagine Don sodding Headley screwing up like that?’

The radio crackled and a terse message was sent to one of the other teams. Spread in a vast ring around Heathrow, they were taking part in an anti-terrorist exercise that had already been going on for nearly three days. The floor of the car was littered with all the detritus of a stake-out: cigarette packets, hamburger cartons, newspaper reeking of old fish and chips, drink cans, crisp packets, sweet wrappers and heavily thumbed copies of several tabloids, the pages no longer in any sort of order and not one crossword more than a third completed.

Captain Don Headley of the SAS had kept them on the go ever since his initial briefing, and all the teams were longing for the exercise to end. Those who passed were due to proceed to the next stage of training, but Paul and Colin were having serious doubts about their original decision to transfer to the new anti-terrorist squad that was being set up.

�You know what I can’t stick?’ Colin said after a while.

�What’s that?’

�The way Don manages to go without sleep for days on bloody end and still keep his cool.’

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. �Me, I feel shagged after one night out.’

Paul grinned. �He’s a right smooth bugger, isn’t he? Still, with a little luck he’ll sod off back to Hereford soon and leave us in peace.’

The rain lashed against the car window and drummed on the roof. Colin shivered and slid deeper into his leather jacket. The zip was open to the waist and his stomach bulged over his belt. Paul looked at him with distaste.

�In a way it’s kind of cosy in here, isn’t it?’ Colin said, hunting around on the back seat for a paper to read.

�Speak for yourself.’ Paul eyed the debris. �If this is your idea of cosy I can imagine what your house looks like. It explains why your wife left you.’

�Nah, silly cow was worse than I was. You should have seen the kitchen. Looked like a shagging bomb had hit it.’

Paul could well imagine. He had seen the food stains on the walls and ceilings of Colin’s office. The man was a walking disaster area.

He rubbed a hole in the breath misting the windscreen. Outside it was starting to lighten. Rain came down vertically, bouncing on the tarmac and rushing in the gutters. He sighed, misting the peep-hole, then looked at his watch for the umpteenth time.

�When do you reckon we’ll be ordered to move?’ Colin asked.

Paul shrugged. �Your guess is as good as mine.’

They had been carrying out a series of surveillance tasks in their assigned area, but after their last one they had been directed to their present location to await retasking. It looked a prosperous residential street. The houses were mostly large, with trim hedges, large front gardens and no doubt even larger gardens to the rear.

At the end of the street he saw the large, white shape of a Transit turn towards them. It cruised slowly closer, stopping some thirty yards away. With the water coursing down the windscreen it was impossible to see it distinctly, but he wasn’t bothered. It was probably just a plumber or decorator arriving early for a job in one of the houses.

However, the next moment he made out the vague outline of figures bundling from the back of the van and running towards one of the larger houses.

�What do you make of that?’

Colin grunted, not lifting his eyes from the nude in the paper. Her lips were peeled back in a provocative smile, eyes half-closed, breasts thrust out as if someone had just shoved her hard in the small of the back and she was about to topple downstairs.

�Colin, I’m fucking talking to you. Look.’

Reluctantly Colin made his own peep-hole with his sleeve and peered through it at the house. He was just in time to see one of the men kick his way through the side gate.

�Fucking hell!’ He dropped the paper. �It must be another part of the bloody exercise. That bastard! He sent us here for a break and then hits us with an incident. What the fuck do we do?’

Paul thought for a moment. �Hang on,’ he said, playing for time while he ordered his thoughts. �They’re probably supposed to be terrorists. It’ll be a safe house or something.’

�Don’t be daft. They wouldn’t go bundling in like that, kicking in doors if it was a safe house, would they?’

Paul cursed himself silently. He liked to think of himself as the brighter of the two, but for once Colin was right.

�Then they’re probably seizing the house to use as a base for the duration of an attack on the airport.’

�Yeah!’ Colin chirped, becoming enthusiastic. All of a sudden their fatigue was forgotten and they sat up and kicked aside the debris littering the floor of the car as they tried to work out how they were expected to react.

�Perhaps they’re planning to fire a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile from the back garden, or something?’ Colin said, his tongue hardly able to keep pace with his ideas.

Paul thought about it and rubbed his chin. �Could be. We’re right under the main flight path all right. Yeah, that’s probably it.’

�So what do we do then?’ Colin blinked at him, lost for a solution.

�There’s too many of them for us to do anything. I reckon we report in and wait for backup.’

�Good thinking. Will you do it or shall I?’

Paul reached for the radio. �It’s my turn. You bogged up the last one.’

He pressed the transmitter switch and spoke slowly and clearly, reporting the incident and requesting support. The message was acknowledged and when he had replaced the handset he sat back with a self-satisfied smile.

It was a couple of minutes before the radio buzzed into life again and the voice of Don Headley rasped into the stagnant air of the car.

�Echo Two, what’s all this about a van? Over.’

Paul and Colin swapped grins. �He’s playing dumb,’ Colin whispered, as if Don himself were actually in the car.

Paul repeated his report. There was another pause before Don came back and said, �It’s nothing to do with the ex.’

�Yeah, yeah,’ Paul crooned easily. �Look, just log it down that we did the right thing and asked for backup. I know a bunch of terrorists when I see one.’

Don sounded amused. �If that’s the case I suggest you get the hell out of there. I repeat, there are no exercise activities planned in your area for the rest of the day. Out.’

The line went dead. Paul and Colin sat staring at one another.

�Reckon they could be decorators or something? Builders perhaps. They looked fit buggers.’

Paul laughed uneasily. �They can’t be terrorists, can they? Can you imagine it? Here in the middle of bleeding Southall?’

Colin nodded and scrabbled around on the floor for his discarded newspaper.

Suddenly, from inside the house they heard a muffled crack. They stared at each other again, but this time their faces paled.

�Did you hear that?’

�What the fuck was it?’

There was a second crack, and then a third.

�Oh, shit. That’s a bloody shooter.’

Colin opened his door and started to pull himself out of the car. Paul snatched at his sleeve and tugged him back.

�Where do you think you’re going, Humphrey sodding Bogart? In case you’ve forgotten, we don’t carry firearms.’

�Well, we can’t just sit here.’

Paul grabbed at the radio and called the station where the exercise control had been established.

�Get me the guv. And be quick about it!’ he snapped.

�He’s in a meeting. He told me he was not to be interrupted,’ the duty operator replied.

�Listen, you tit, I don’t give a fuck. We’ve got a real incident here. There’s shooting in Bramley Road. Tell them to get some armed assistance here on the double. Got that?’

There was a pause before the operator asked nervously, �This is part of the exercise, right?’

Paul almost slammed the handset against the dashboard in frustration. �No, it fucking isn’t! This is for real. Now do as I say or I’ll crawl down the sodding air waves and rip your throat out!’

�So it’s not part of the ex?’

Colin swore and started out of the car again.

�No,’ Paul persevered with all the self-control he could muster. �Now pass my message, right?’

�Roger. Out.’

He looked up to see that Colin was almost at the driveway, then quickly got out and rushed to join him. It was only when they were opening the gate that they noticed the man still standing beside the dirty white van. He appeared to be unconcerned by the gunshots from inside the house and when they caught his eyes he smiled pleasantly.

�Hang on, let’s ask the geezer what’s going on. Maybe it’s nothing.’

They went towards him and as they drew near Colin whispered, �It’s a Paki.’

�Brilliant, Watson. Any more deductions?’

The man stepped towards them. �Can I help you?’

They were taken aback by his Oxford accent.

�Excuse me, sir, but is this your van?’

The man turned round as if to check it was still there. �Yes,’ he said, then, as an afterthought, �May I enquire who’s asking?’

Remembering procedure and feeling suddenly a bit stupid, Paul fumbled in his jacket pocket and produced his identity card. �Police,’ he said.

The man smiled. �Splendid. How can I help you?’

Becoming impatient, Colin said, �Was that a gunshot we heard just now?’

The man’s eyes widened theatrically. �A gunshot? I certainly hope not.’

�Well, what was it then?’

�I really couldn’t say. I didn’t hear anything.’ He turned to the driver, who had got out of the van and joined him. In contrast to the two policemen they were both tall, lean and fit.

Paul glanced back at the house. �Would you come with us, please, sir?’

The man shrugged. �If you insist, officer.’ He said something quickly to the driver in a language that the policemen could not understand.

Keeping the man in front of him, Paul walked down the driveway towards the house. As the front door was shut they veered towards the side gate. �After you, if you don’t mind, sir,’ he said. Again the man shrugged politely, still smiling.

A window showed into the kitchen and although the room itself was empty they could hear something being smashed elsewhere in the house. Before they could ask any more questions the man turned and explained, �We’re doing some construction work, you see. A really wealthy fellow, the owner. He wanted all sorts of alterations done.’

Colin relaxed, whispering, �I thought so. Sodding builders. The boss is going to roast us alive when the heavies turn up and find out. We’ll be the laughing-stock of the whole bloody force.’

They reached the back of the house and saw a large, well-kept garden stretching down to a tall hedge at the bottom.

�Come on,’ Paul said miserably. �Let’s get this over with.’ He turned to the man. �We’d better check it out if you don’t mind.’

For the first time the man’s calm smile faltered and a second later it died altogether. His eyes chilled and narrowed and he sighed heavily. �Of course. I understand. I very much regret the inconvenience to you though.’

Paul chuckled pleasantly. �It’s no bother, sir. Just a peek and then we’ll leave you in peace. So as we can say we did our duty.’

�Naturally. Duty,’ the man said, his voice low and matter of fact. He seemed to be searching for something in his pocket and when he pulled out a small automatic pistol Paul and Colin stared at it dumbly, the shock not even registering.

�We all have our duty to perform,’ the man said. He took a single step backwards, widened his stance and shot Colin in the solar plexus with a rapid double tap. Colin staggered against the wall, his mouth opening and shutting like a fish out of water, and then sank to the floor. Paul watched in mesmerized horror as the smoking muzzle flicked on to its new target. Behind it, the man seemed almost apologetic for what he had just done, and, more particularly, for what he was about to do.

�If only you’d stayed in your car and minded your own business. But you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.’

Paul held out his hand as if ordering a car to stop, as the first of the bullets spat straight through his palm and hammered into his ribcage. He clutched at the wound and his knees gave way.

�You bastard,’ he muttered, his words sounding distant and garbled. He didn’t seem able to get his tongue around the syllables he had used so often in the past. �You fucking…’

He fell on to his back and stared up at the foul grey sky. Rain stung his face but it was strangely refreshing, a counter to the ache he was just beginning to feel. Suddenly the sky filled with the man’s enquiring face looking down at him. Then he saw the muzzle again, lowering, getting monstrously large until he felt its warm metal pushing into his mouth. He tried to speak, to plead, but the cold muzzle was being forced upwards, pressing into the roof of his mouth, the line of the short, hard barrel aiming directly through the slim bone and into the brain.

There were words in his head, something about being so terribly sorry. Wrong place and wrong time. The man’s voice was calm as if talking about the weather. The weather. It was a shit-awful day to die, Paul thought, as the pistol flinched at the sudden pressure being applied to the trigger.




2 (#u58748eb0-1eab-5ca3-b26f-222421e3de55)


By the time Don Headley received the news the phones in the ops room were already buzzing with enquiries from the press. At first he couldn’t believe what had happened. Reality had broken into the middle of his exercise and two men were dead.

As soon as he could he got away from his desk and drove to Bramley Road. It was mid-morning and the traffic was heavy. On all sides drivers drummed their steering wheels in frustration as the long queues edged slowly forwards. The rain had stopped and a harsh winter light percolated through the thick layers of cloud, muting the colours into one continuous semblance of grey. It was a part of the country Don particularly hated, the dense belt of urban wasteland spread thickly around central London. Successive decades had added to it, pushing it out ever further until towns that had once counted themselves lucky to be outside the city now found themselves being sucked in, not enjoying full membership but rather taken on board as second-class citizens in a dubious club.

Hounslow, Isleworth, Sunbury, Feltham – the names rolled past, each representing an identical sprawl of little red houses and car-packed residential streets. It wasn’t so long ago that such roads would have boasted hardly a single vehicle parked at the kerbside, but increasing prosperity had combined with thoughtless marketing by the car manufacturers, whose eyes were solely on profit, and it had resulted in nearly every household owning at least one vehicle. Along either side of every road parked cars were jammed in nose to tail. It struck Don as a case of suicide by self-strangulation on a national scale. No one individual was prepared to sacrifice his car, not even with the prospect looming of the next generation gassing itself. Public transport was overcrowded and stank, so what was the incentive?

For an incentive to work and change a lifestyle it had to produce a more immediate threat. But then with smoking even that hadn’t worked, Don reflected as he waited impatiently behind a lorry that was belching obnoxious blue fumes. It was almost possible to predict to a smoker the year in which his habit would bring about his agonizing death, and yet nine times out of ten he would continue. What was the answer? Don was buggered if he knew. Perhaps the species was on track for extinction and it was as simple as that. Self-destruction had replaced self-preservation as the prime motivation in the human psyche, and no one had even noticed. He grinned sardonically. They had probably been too busy watching Gladiators.

It was another half hour before he drew up outside the house. A policeman came to his window to wave him on but he produced a pass and was allowed to go in search of a parking space. The curtains in the neighbouring houses twitched as inquisitive eyes followed him out of the car and down the driveway. The couple in the house on the opposite side of the road were less circumspect and stood at their open doorway, mugs of tea in their hands, interested to find their mundane existence disrupted by something as exciting as a murder.

Chief Inspector Rod Chiltern met Don at the front of the house.

�The SOCO’s round the back with his lads. Be careful not to touch anything.’

Don scowled at him, resenting the caution. Nevertheless, he was only there as an observer. It was police business and had nothing to do with the SAS. So far.

He followed Chiltern down the narrow path. The first thing he saw when he emerged at the back outside the kitchen door was the body of Colin Field. It was propped up against the wall as if he had just sat down for a rest. His legs were splayed, the scuffed trainers out of sync with the portly figure of their owner. His head was cocked heavily to one side, the eyes open a slit, lips pursed. A trickle of blood had dried to a crack of dark purple running from the corner of his mouth to his chin, but the real sign of damage was the blood on the red brick of the wall, splashed liberally as if a child had flung a can of paint at it.

A couple of yards from him, Paul Robins lay on the crazy-paving terrace. Don noticed the shattered hand and could imagine how Paul had received the wound. The wound in his chest was bad but he judged it had probably not been fatal. That had been reserved for the head shot.

He moved carefully round to the far side.

�Jesus,’ he whistled.

Chiltern nodded. �Not much chance of giving him the kiss of life, is there?’ he said.

The explosion of the gun in the confined space of the mouth had blown out most of the teeth, propelling them through the thin wall of the cheeks. But where the bullet had exited through the top and back of the skull there was a gaping hole. It had taken the larger portion of the brain with it and slammed it in a rough fan shape on the paving stones.

�How well did you know them?’ Chiltern asked.

Don shrugged. �Reasonably. They’d been on my course for a while and you get to know the guys quickly that way.’

He was being polite, tempering his opinion because he knew that Chiltern had worked with both the dead men for several years. In truth Don had found them to be a couple of no-hopers, overweight, inefficient, dim-witted and bungling. Just the stupid sods, in fact, to walk straight into the middle of an armed gang without so much as a catapult. But no one deserved to die like this, he thought. Not even these two.

He crouched down beside them and looked around. The scene-of-crime officer had done a thorough sweep and everything that might be needed as evidence was circled with a thin chalk line. Principal among these items were several cartridge cases. Don asked if he might have a closer look at one of them and the SOCO nodded.

�Don’t bugger up the prints, and put it back where you found it,’ he snapped, busy with a measuring tape, marking the distance from Colin’s body to the point where he estimated the firer must have been standing.

Don took a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped one of them on. Carefully, he picked up the nearest of the cases and examined it. It was 9mm calibre. Powerful enough to silence a full-grown man, especially at almost point-blank range. No wonder Colin had been flung against the wall with such force, he thought.

But there was something unusual about it and a moment later Don realized what it was. He had come across its kind only once before. Several years ago he had been on secondment to the Sultan of Oman’s army. The Sultan’s quartermaster had done some shopping around on the open market for ammunition in an effort to cut costs. British ammunition had proved the most expensive, and he had finally opted for a batch of Pakistani-made rounds, both 7.62mm and 9mm. They hadn’t performed as effectively or as consistently as the British-made ammunition, several of the rounds misfiring and causing stoppages owing to an insufficient charge of powder in the brass case. But they had done the job and Pakistani ammunition had been used a great deal thereafter.

Turning the cartridge case in his fingers, Don was convinced that this was from the same source. He replaced it in its white chalk circle, where it looked as if it was about to be part of some Satanic ceremony.

He voiced his opinion to the SOCO, who grunted and said, �Right now I couldn’t give a stuff. But thanks all the same. I’ll get the lads on to it back at the lab. If you’re right they’ll be able to tell you the exact factory it came from, right down to the postcode.’

Don went into the kitchen, where Chiltern was receiving a report from one of his men. He looked up as Don came in. �Nice mess, isn’t it?’

�That’s what happens when you get in the way of a 9mm bullet or two.’

�Well, there’s another two dead upstairs,’ Chiltern added, shaking his head. �Right sodding blood-bath this is turning into.’

He led the way into the hall and up the stairs. Everywhere were signs of the intruders’ recent presence. Furniture had been overturned, pictures ripped from the walls and ornaments smashed.

�It looks like my own place after the kids have had a party,’ Chiltern said, grinning.

They found the next body sprawled on the landing. It was the body of a middle-aged man of Indian appearance. A bullet wound in the back of the left leg indicated that he had been brought down trying to run away from his attackers. Thereafter someone had made a crude attempt at interrogating him. A heavy metal file had been applied to the surfaces of his teeth until they were almost completely rubbed level with the blood-soaked gums.

�That’s an old Spetsnaz trick,’ Don said in amazement.

�Who?’

�Spetsnaz. Soviet special forces.’

Chiltern winced at the gruesome spectacle. �What the fuck would they be doing in Southall?’

Don shrugged. �I don’t know, but during the Cold War they sent training teams abroad, just like we did.’

�Passing on their techniques, you mean?’

�Exactly.’

The man’s eyes were wide open and staring, bulging out of their sockets with the agony. A cloth had been stuffed at the back of his mouth to prevent him screaming and he had been finished off with a bullet to the back of the head.

�Who was he?’ Don asked.

�Just a guy who ran a chain of curry restaurants in the area,’ Chiltern replied. �I’ve ordered takeaways from them myself. Bloody good they were too.’

�Any idea why anyone would want to do this to him?’

Chiltern shrugged. �Not a clue.’ He smirked. �Perhaps someone got Delhi belly after his vindaloo.’

Don ignored the wisecrack. �You said there were a couple of bodies?’

The policeman pointed to an open door. From inside Don could hear the click and whirr of an automatic camera. He stepped over the dead man and went on down the corridor. The bare legs were the first thing he saw, protruding from behind the bed. The police photographer looked up.

�Nasty. Very nasty. It’s as clinical as an execution.’

He moved aside to allow Don a clear line of sight to the body. It was a woman. Presumably the man’s wife. They seemed to Don to be of a similar age. She was dressed in a bright-blue sari trimmed in gold. Expensive. He studied the room. It was obviously the home of a well-to-do family.

Unlike her husband’s, the woman’s eyes were tightly shut; clenched, as if trying to shut out some unpleasantness. One hand was clasped to her throat in shock and the other held a candlestick.

�Looks like she tried to defend herself,’ Chiltern said.

A single bullet between the shoulder-blades had thwarted any such attempt, ending her life immediately.

While Chiltern spoke to the SOCO, who had now finished in the garden and climbed up the stairs to start work in the house, Don wandered out on to the landing again and explored the other rooms. There were two bathrooms, a guest bedroom, tastefully decorated but unlived in, and a large room clearly belonging to an older man. There were smashed photograph frames on the floor, and a walking stick snapped in two.

But it was the last room that caught his attention most. Posters hung off the walls, pictures of pop stars and horses. The furnishings were in pinks and pale, gentle shades, and the clothes torn from the ransacked drawers were those of a young woman. More interestingly, there was a single small stain on the carpet close by the door. Don stooped and examined it. The next moment he shouted down the landing to the SOCO.

�I think you’d better take a look at this.’

The SOCO and Chiltern padded down the corridor towards him.

�What is it?’

Don pointed at the stain. �Looks like blood, if you ask me.’

The SOCO sighed in exasperation. �Is that all? The whole sodding house is awash with blood, and you raise the alarm over one tiny stain.’

�Yes, but look at the room. Someone’s been in here recently.’

�Brilliant! I can tell you’re army.’ The SOCO shook his head.

But Chiltern saw what Don was getting at. �Don’s right.’

�Thank you,’ Don said. �Have you found the body of a girl yet?’

The SOCO blanched. �No.’

�Then I suggest you start looking for her because there was a girl in this room less than an hour ago. Look.’ He pointed at the dressing table. �The make-up’s open. Don’t tell me the intruders wanted to touch up their lipstick.’

�Shit,’ Chiltern hissed. �If they’ve taken her we could have a hostage crisis on our hands as well as a quadruple murder. What the hell’s going on here?’ He turned on his heel and marched back to the stairs. �Don, you come with me. This is police business now. I shouldn’t have allowed you in here in the first place. Your assistance and interest are much appreciated, but I’ll handle things from now on. Oh, and by the way, I suggest you end that exercise of yours. Reality’s got in the way. Thanks for everything, but you can return to Hereford. Send me a report on the guys you think might have passed when you’ve got a moment to write them up.’

He led Don to the front door and ushered him out into the front garden. It had started to rain again and as he sauntered back to his car Don turned up the collar of his jacket and hunched his shoulders against the sharp cold. He had seen more than his fair share of action, but the sight of the murders had shocked him. There was something particularly repulsive about the sight of a dead body in an otherwise normal setting. It was bad enough on the battlefield, but in a comfortable house in the middle of suburbia it smacked of the most appalling decay. Two of the men on his course had been butchered in cold blood and in a way he felt responsible for it. They had radioed in to report their sighting of a van and although it had been a police responsibility to dispatch assistance, Don had noticed that there had been little sense of urgency. No one had really believed Paul’s message, assuming it to be just another part of the exercise programme. Because of the delay they were dead.

He unlocked the door of his car and got in, turning the key and gunning the accelerator as the engine fired. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He could be home in Hereford by teatime. All of a sudden he wanted nothing more than to be out on the motorway and burning up the miles of tarmac between London’s dismal outskirts and the fresh air of the Severn estuary, the green hills of Wales beckoning from beyond.

Chiltern had been right. It was a police matter and nothing to do with a soldier. Don’s job had simply been to run the exercise and help the police with their anti-terrorist training. What could such an occurrence possibly have to do with him? It was just bad luck that Colin and Paul had got caught up in the middle of something that was too big for them. They were dumb for getting involved.

Blanking it out of his mind, he headed for the nearest junction of the M4, just east of Heathrow, and threaded his way out into the traffic. The rush hour was tailing to a close but it was always busy on this stretch. Within half an hour, however, the spaces between the cars expanded and soon he had his foot flat on the floor, feeling the miles being eaten up beneath his wheels.

No doubt there would be the usual hearty jokes in the mess when he got back to the barracks. The older he got the more the humour grated. It was all very well when you were young but after a while you started to see that there wasn’t much to laugh about in death. Perhaps that was the time to quit.

But as he drove he found his mind flicking back always to the same thing. Not to the bodies of Colin or Paul, the exploded brains on the paving stones and the blood on the wall, nor the body on the landing or in the bedroom, the candlestick clasped pathetically in its small, tight fist. But rather to the empty bedroom with the posters and the untouched make-up jars. Somewhere, if he was right, a young woman had been taken hostage. And although the matter was out of his hands he couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow he hadn’t heard the last of it. Somehow he knew that he would be involved with it again.

�Are you sure she can breathe?’

�Don’t worry.’

�I’m not worrying,’ Ceda Bandram said slowly, glowering over his shoulder at Ali Shaffer, who sat sprawled across the back seat. �I don’t want to arrive only to find that she’s suffocated.’ He stabbed a finger at Ali. �You would be held personally responsible. Remember that.’

Ali sniggered and waved a large, nonchalant paw. �I drilled holes in the underside of the boot. A shame considering the newness of the car, but it couldn’t be helped, I suppose. It’ll all be charged to the expense account.’

Bandram stared ahead at the slow-moving traffic. Since the events at the house he had changed into a sweatshirt, slacks and moccasins. The van had been dumped in a lock-up garage that had been hired for the purpose and he estimated it would be a good many weeks before it was discovered. By then they would be several thousand miles away.

The team had split up and were now travelling by separate routes and methods of transport to the next rendezvous and the next leg of their onward journey. For himself, Ali and the driver, there had been a waiting BMW and of course he had ensured that the hostage had been brought with him. Every man in the team had been hand-picked but even so he made a habit of never trusting anyone but himself with the most delicate part of any mission.

The only man whom he had not selected was Ali. There was nothing he could do about it, however. Ali had been forced upon him by the boss. He was another relation, although Ceda had never known much about him. But that was the way with families in Pakistan, complex networks of relatives with every so often the discovery of some hidden black sheep. And Ali was such a cupboard skeleton if ever there was one. Ceda had been disgusted with the evident glee with which Ali had conducted the interrogation at the house. It was not that he was squeamish, but there were ways of doing things. One didn’t have to enjoy the more unpleasant tasks of the business. Some unfortunate things might always be necessary, but maintaining a sense of propriety kept one separated from the beast. In Ceda’s view Ali had crossed that threshold. He glanced back at him again, but Ali was staring happily out of the window humming to himself. His torture of the poor individual at the house seemed to be completely forgotten.

Ceda consoled himself with the thought that there were a great many pitfalls before the team finally reached safety. There would be plenty of opportunities for a fatal accident to befall Ali. Ceda for one would not mourn his loss.

The driver coughed and nodded towards a lay-by. A police car and motorcycle were parked at the roadside, the men scanning the traffic. They had already flagged down two white vans and were attempting to attract the attention of a third. Ceda smiled to himself. He was due to switch vehicles at least once more before the final RV and was confident that even if the police discovered the original van they would be unable to track him in time.

He reached down the side of the seat and pulled out a road map, unfolded it on his lap and began studying the markings he had made earlier. Bored with his humming, Ali leaned forward, crossing his arms on the back of Ceda’s seat and peering over his shoulder to get a look at the map.

�Where to now, cousin?’ he asked sarcastically.

�Don’t call me that,’ Ceda said coolly.

Ali shrugged. �I thought blood was supposed to be thicker than water?’

�You ought to know. You’ve seen enough of it.’

�You didn’t do so bad yourself, you hypocrite. Dropping those two cops like that.’ He shaped his hand like a gun and put it to Ceda’s head, mimicking the shooting. �Bang, bang. You’re dead. Nice work. A bit cold and clinical for my liking, but professional. Uncle would approve.’

�I didn’t do it for Uncle’s approval. In fact I didn’t want to do it at all.’

�Oh no, of course not. I forgot. You’re the ex-army officer. Death before dishonour, and all that. I’m sorry.’ He sat back with a derisory laugh. �You’re full of shit.’

Ceda gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to go for the gun in his belt. The driver glanced nervously across at him and he relaxed. He was responsible for the whole team, not just for himself. He couldn’t afford to lose his temper, and certainly not over a dick-head like Ali.

�Where’s the next switch?’ the driver asked, keen to divert the conversation away from the rivalry between the two men. It had been evident to most of the team members from the outset but they all knew and trusted Ceda, and were confident that he would see them safely through.

�Not the next service station but the one after that. The cars have been left in the car park. I’ve got the registration numbers here.’ He patted his breast pocket.

�It seems such a waste just to ditch the car,’ the driver added, stroking the dashboard lovingly. �She’s a beauty.’

Ceda smiled. �That’s business. Just be thankful you’re not footing the bill.’

Ali perked up from the rear. �Talking of beauties, how do you intend to transfer the cargo?’ He jabbed a thumb at the boot. �You can’t just lift her out in full view of everyone.’

�Don’t worry. That’s been seen to. The car’ll be parked in a nice private spot. No one will see.’

He turned on the radio to cut short any further talk with Ali, pressing the automatic tuning button and watching the digital display purr rapidly through the frequencies. There was some traffic news warning of jams on the M4, and he checked the map to see if it would interfere with their escape.

�Problem?’ the driver asked.

�Could be. It’s after the next switch. It could have cleared by the time we get there, but it might be wise to make a detour.’

�Won’t that confuse the others?’

�It might, but it’ll be better than getting stuck in a tailback and waiting for the police to catch up with us. Every extra hour we spend in this miserable country increases the chance that they’ll be on to us.’

There was a metallic click from the back of the car and Ceda glanced around to see Ali playing with his pistol.

�Personally I don’t care if they do catch up with us,’ Ali said. He aimed down the barrel of his gun. �Just let them try and take me.’ He squeezed the trigger and the hammer clicked shut on an empty chamber.

�Keep that bloody thing out of sight,’ Ceda snapped. The traffic was light on the present stretch of road but there was always the chance of another motorist seeing the gun and reporting it to the police.

It was another half an hour before they saw the sign advertising the service station. The driver waited for Ceda’s confirmatory signal before indicating and pulling over into the slow lane. Ceda adjusted the wing mirror beside him and checked that they were not being followed. The lane behind was clear. No other car appeared to be coming after them.

The car slowed as the driver worked down through the gears, tracing the white arrows marking the route for cars wanting the main car park. It was moderately busy. Rows of large lorries were drawn up in line and in the other section the only available spaces were the ones farthest from the restaurant and shops. They cruised up and down until Ceda said, �There it is. The grey Ford.’

�That’s a bit of a come-down,’ Ali drawled from the back.

Ceda ignored him. �Park next to it.’

Two orange plastic cones had kept the adjacent space free of cars and as the car slowed, Ceda darted out and moved them, waving the BMW forward until it was close alongside and the driver cut the engine. The boots of the two cars were angled away from the main public areas and were shielded from view by a screen of trees.

Ceda cursed.

�What’s the matter?’ the driver asked as he got out and stretched, his muscles cramped after the long drive.

�Those idiots who did the recce. They must have come here in the summer. The trees would have been covered in leaves then. Now look at them.’

He was right. The leaves had long since fallen, washed into a brown pulp by prolonged heavy rain, and it was possible to see the shopping area through the bare branches.

�Well, it can’t be helped.’

�Do you want us to transfer the girl now?’ the driver asked nervously.

�No. We’ll wait until the others get here and then do it. I want to have a look around in any case.’

�Good, I’ll come with you,’ Ali said brightly.

Ceda considered telling him to forget it, but decided not to.

�You stay here,’ he ordered the driver. �If you see any of the others don’t make it obvious that we’re together.’

�Got it.’

Trying to forget that Ali was beside him, Ceda walked briskly towards the main building. His familiarity with Britain was one of the reasons he had been selected for the mission. In his army days he had been sent for training to Sandhurst and since then he had been back to attend further courses in the country. During those times he had used the opportunity to travel widely. Later, after his resignation, he had worked briefly in Britain, staying with relatives in London and Birmingham. He felt comfortable moving through the rail and road networks, while still maintaining the psychological distance of the visitor. On the present mission that distance was a vital safeguard against carelessness. Familiarity might well breed contempt, but complacency was a far more dangerous by-product.

After a trip to the toilets they went into the concourse and stood for a moment surveying the array of shops and eating places. There was the choice between a sit-down restaurant, a hamburger takeaway bar and a cafeteria. Without asking Ali which one he preferred, Ceda pointed towards the cafeteria and grunted.

They each took a tray and tagged on to the short queue. Plastic-wrapped sandwiches and salads were stacked behind a glass-fronted cabinet, and at the next counter a selection of hot dishes steamed under heat lamps.

�What’ll it be, love?’ the waitress asked when their turn came.

Ali flashed her a disarming smile. �The All Day Breakfast looks impossible to resist…’

The waitress reached for a plate and started to shovel on bacon and eggs.

�…but I’ll go for the cottage pie.’

She glared at him and with a heavy sigh tipped the bacon and eggs back in their containers. �Cottage pie? Are you sure?’ she asked, taking a clean plate.

Ali hummed. �Yeees,’ he said slowly. �I think so.’

He felt a sharp dig in his ribs and looked round to find Ceda staring hard at him.

�Yes, cottage pie,’ he said with an air of finality.

In an attempt to placate the waitress Ceda helped himself, bustling Ali along to the till, picking up two coffees on the way. When they had paid and were sitting at a table he leaned across and said threateningly, �Try that again and I’ll shoot you, in public or not.’

�What have I done?’ Ali said innocently.

�Drawn attention to yourself, that’s what. She’ll remember you now, you idiot. If you’d kept your stupid mouth shut you’d be just another customer. But oh no, not you. When the police start asking questions she’ll be able to give them a full description of the two of us. Are you satisfied?’

�Don’t worry about it. We’ll be long gone by then.’

Afraid lest he lose his temper, Ceda started his food, eating more quickly than he would have liked to, feeling as if the eyes of everyone in the place were upon them. This is not good, he thought. This moron could jeopardize the whole team.

The moment he had finished his food he drained his coffee cup and prepared to leave.

�Hang on. I’m not ready yet,’ Ali protested.

�I don’t give a shit. We’re going.’

While they had been eating, Ceda had noticed the rest of the team members arriving in twos and threes. Each group sat alone, acknowledging each other with only the most cursory of glances. When they saw Ceda make a move, they moved too.

Ceda was just making his way out towards the entrance when Ali stopped.

�I need a leak.’

�Again? Be quick about it.’

The other teams walked on past, looking at Ceda with sympathy. There was no love lost between any of them and Ali. Through the glass entrance doors Ceda could see the teams making their way towards their new cars. It would all be over soon, he consoled himself. They would soon be out of the country and in the clear, and as soon as they were back home he would speak to the boss and tell him how the choice of Ali had been a disastrous one.

It was the raised voices that first alerted him to the approach of trouble. From inside the toilets Ceda heard a shout followed by scuffling. He moved rapidly towards the entrance but as he rounded the tiled corner a single gunshot rang out.

The sight that greeted him when he burst through the swing door stopped him in his tracks. A man in the blue overalls of a lorry driver lay sprawled across the floor, blood spreading from his chest across the white lino of the floor. Standing over him, Ali looked up at Ceda. In his right hand he held his pistol, smoke seeping from the muzzle.

�He went for me,’ he said simply, as if that explained everything.

Against the far wall, three other men backed away in horror. The door to one of the cubicles opened and a man came out, his face frozen in fear.

�You idiot!’ Ceda roared and made a grab for the pistol. But Ali snatched it out of reach, his eyes warning him not to try again.

�He insulted me, I said. No one calls me names and gets away with it.’

Without stopping to listen Ceda spun on his heel and made for the exit. �Come on,’ he shouted at Ali.

In the space of seconds the whole painfully prepared escape procedure had collapsed about him. The pre-positioned cars, the garage hideaway, the recced routes – everything. All to no avail. Within minutes the police would be on to them. Speed was now their only chance – and even that might not save them.




3 (#u58748eb0-1eab-5ca3-b26f-222421e3de55)


Don Headley swerved on an impulse into the slow lane, carving up a lorry in the process. The driver blew his horn and Don waved an apology as he veered off the motorway and headed up the exit road into the service station. He had been driving for well over an hour and felt in need of a strong coffee. Because of the exercise with the police he had not had a decent night’s sleep for several days and his eyes had started to blink shut as the motorway unfurled beneath him, its rhythmic pulse on his tyres soothing his nerves and lulling him into a fatal sleep. He had to wake himself up if he was to make it to Hereford in one piece.

Some way back he had wound down his window, letting the cold air blast in. For a while it had worked, but since he was well used to exposure to the elements even that had eventually been blunted by his fatigue. Now, only a substantial intake of caffeine would do the trick.

It was a service station he had used many times before. He had lost count of the number of times he had made the M4 trip between Wales and London, but over the years he reckoned he must have sampled the delights of every service station along the way. Most of them were pretty rough; various companies had bought them as part of a job lot, stamping each one with its own insipid identity. It had got to the stage where Don preferred to take his own sandwiches and a flask of coffee, and simply sit in the car park by himself before filling up with petrol and pressing on. That morning, however, there had been no time for such preparations, so he turned towards the restaurant and shops and looked for a parking place.

There was the usual assortment of visitors, families with young kids, sales reps in their Fords, Vauxhalls and Rovers, the occasional foreign tourist coping with the difficulties of driving on the left, and a variety of coaches and articulated lorries. An icy wind cut savagely across the car park, sweeping in across the surrounding open fields. He hurriedly wound up his window and shivered, deciding that he would need his jacket once out of the car.

He found a vacant space reasonably close to the buildings, swung his car in and switched off the engine. The car rocked in the stiff breeze that howled along the avenues of vehicles, struggling to get in. When he opened the door the wind grasped at it and tugged it wide. Don stepped out on to the tarmac and turned up his collar, then locked the door and set off towards the main entrance. He had gone only a few yards when he heard a commotion and looked up to see two men pushing their way out of the concourse. In their haste they shouldered aside an elderly couple, almost knocking the man to the floor.

�Bloody impatient bastards,’ Don muttered. Everyone was in such a rush these days.

The old man staggered but managed to regain his balance, turning after the men and shaking a wizened fist at them. He shouted something but his words were lost in the wind.

But something else was happening. Through the double glass doors Don could see people throwing themselves to the floor while others scurried for cover. In his half-awake state, the images refused to order themselves in his brain. It failed to register that there was anything untoward about it all. He reached the doors and only then did he hear the shouting.

�He’s got a gun!’

�Someone call the police!’

�Get a doctor! There’s a man dying in here!’

Suddenly Don’s head cleared. He took one look at the chaos inside the concourse and then spun to see where the two men had gone. A large lorry was just pulling to a halt, obscuring his view. He ran around it and scanned the car park. Two cars were tearing away from the service station, but through a thin screen of bare trees he just caught a glimpse of the men ducking into a waiting car. The engine was already turning over, white plumes of exhaust hanging in the cold air, and the next moment the wheels were spinning as it set off.

Don’s hand went automatically to his chest and felt the reassuring bulge of the shoulder holster. There might just be time to head them off and get a couple of clear shots at the car before it disappeared past the petrol pumps.

He sprinted past the rows of parked cars. People stared at him in surprise and alarm, unaware of what had just happened in the restaurant area. Someone called out a warning and Don narrowly managed to avoid running headlong into an approaching van. He veered to one side, bouncing off the sides of it and regaining his balance with difficulty. On the far side of the car park he could see the car and its occupants accelerating away. It was heading in the opposite direction to the other two cars. In Don’s mind the connection was quickly made. They were all part of the same team. He had seen that the men were Asian and could hardly believe what his instinct told him: that they were the ones from the Bramley Road incident.

However, unlike the two cars that had screamed away towards the exit, the one he was running after was making for a barrier that led out of the rear of the service station on to a minor road. It was a restricted entrance for use by the service-station staff only, and from it access could be gained to the local town and road network. Whoever was in charge of the car obviously had his head screwed on. The other two, by taking to the motorway, were in effect entering a potential trap. The next exit from it was several miles away and by then the police might be able to have a cordon in place. At the very least they would be able to position observers who could report on the cars’ direction and progress to enable armed officers to pursue them.

The other car, by taking a back road, was not restricting itself in any such way. It would be able to go in any number of directions and so multiply its chance of escaping.

Don covered the last few yards to the end of one of the rows and as he reached the last parked car he skidded to his knees and drew his 9mm Browning pistol. Holding it in a two-handed combat grip, he steadied himself against the car door and brought the gun into the aim, waiting for his target to appear and enter his sights.

There was the sound of squealing rubber and the car roared into view, the tyres spinning as the driver swung it round towards the barrier. Don waited until he had a clear line of sight and then squeezed off a rapid double tap at the rear window, where he was able to make out the silhouette of a man sitting upright in the centre. He saw the glass frost as his bullets found their mark but the car continued towards the barrier.

He dropped his point of aim to the fuel tank and was about to fire another double tap when something stopped him, freezing his finger on the trigger’s fragile second pressure. The image of the girl’s room flashed through his mind. If they were indeed the same men from Bramley Road, then they had taken a hostage. Of course it was possible that she was in one of the other two cars, but there was also the chance that she was in this one. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for the loss of an innocent life. He realized that the most obvious place for the girl would be in the boot, and even if he managed to avoid hitting her and got the fuel tank instead, it was possible that his bullets could start a fire. He couldn’t take that risk.

He tried to sight on the tyres but it was no use. In his frustration he fired off another double tap through the rear window in the vague hope that one of his rounds might hit one of the kidnappers.

The next second the bonnet smashed through the flimsy barrier, splintering the wooden pole and breaking free on to the open road beyond. Don got to his feet and ran after it. As he reached the ruined barrier he tried to aim at the retreating car again but it was too late. He stared after the fast-dwindling target, the frosted rear windscreen now being punched out by the man who had been sitting in the back seat. In the last moments before it disappeared Don glimpsed a face grinning derisively at his failure.

Don cursed, easing off the hammer of his pistol and flicking on the safety-catch. He slid it back into his holster and turned back towards the restaurant. In the distance he heard the sound of a police siren and far down the motorway he saw a blue flashing light.

It suddenly occurred to him that he was probably the only one present who had made the connection between the various cars, recognizing them as all part of the same terrorist gang. The two that had taken the motorway could not have got far. There was still time to go after them.

He ran back to his car, slipped into the driving seat, gunned the accelerator and shot out for the entrance to the motorway. A hitchhiker stood at the roadside thumbing a lift. Don screeched to a halt and when the youngster jogged up to his car, instead of opening the door for him to get in he wound down the window and said, �There’s been a shooting in the service station. There’s a police car coming up behind. Wave them down and tell them there are two cars on the motorway heading west and some of the men responsible are in them. Tell them to block the next exit and get a helicopter in the air. Another car crashed out of the back of the car park. Have you got that?’

The youth stared at him dumbstruck. Don repeated, �Have you got that? I haven’t got time to stick around.’

�A shooting?’

�That’s it.’

The youth nodded. �I’ll tell them.’

�Good lad.’

Don put his foot down hard and sped away. The cars he was chasing had already pulled away out of sight, so he drew out into the fast lane and put the accelerator to the floor. It felt as though there was a hand in the small of his back pushing him along. He thought briefly of the car that had burst through the barrier. Perhaps he should have chased that one. But no. By the time he could have gone after it the driver could have veered off on to any one of a dozen minor roads. He had a far better chance of catching the cars that had stupidly chosen the motorway.

The road bent into a long, steady curve as it entered a cutting. When it emerged from the far side of the chalk hillsides he had a clear view for several miles ahead. Like a vast fat snake, the tarmac unfolded across the gently undulating countryside and there, way in the distance, he spotted the two cars, one blue and the other red. Both had now slowed to a more normal speed and he assumed that their occupants imagined they were in the clear. After all, it had been the men in the other car who had done the killing at the service station. It was unlikely that anyone had linked them to the shooting. Who could have known that they were all part of the same team?

Don knew. He eased back on the accelerator so as not to arouse their suspicion but continued to steadily close the distance. Mile after mile passed and all the while he drew closer until eventually he was barely three hundred yards behind the rear car. Out in front he could see the blue Honda Accord powering ahead, the red Ford Orion behind it and closer to him. The two cars were separated from each other by about a hundred yards, and Don could see the men in the rear of the Honda turning to exchange hand signals with the driver and front-seat passenger of the Ford. They appeared to be smiling and carefree, and he could make out their cheery waves.

�Enjoy it while it lasts, you murderous bastards,’ he said quietly, closing the gap a bit more.

He was almost level with the Ford when in the distance behind him he caught the sound of a police siren.

�Bugger!’ he growled.

He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the blue light of a police car flashing far behind. It was a good couple of miles away and he wondered what on earth the police intended to do from that distance.

�Nice one, lads,’ he said. �You’ve just warned them you’re coming.’

Sure enough, he looked at the Ford and saw the men in the back crane round at the sound of the siren. One of them pointed and said something to the driver, and the next moment the car surged ahead, pulling away fast. But as yet they were unaware of Don’s presence and as they accelerated so did he. He knew it would not be long before he was noticed but he had to keep up with them. The driver of the Ford must have flashed his lights to attract the attention of the Honda in front, because the next thing Don saw was the Honda veering away as well. He eased gently up beside the Ford, keeping his eyes fixed on the road and trying not to look suspicious. But the police car was closing steadily and he knew that at any moment the two cars would have to give up all pretence of innocence and make a break for it.

He glanced at his speedometer and saw that the needle was touching ninety. Surely he couldn’t escape their notice much longer?

The answer came a second later when the Ford swung across into the middle lane and almost rammed him. Don tugged the steering wheel hard to avoid a collision and almost lost control, as the driver of the Ford had intended. Struggling to keep on the road, he glanced across and saw the men in the Ford staring hard at him.

�Time to forget the pretence, fellas,’ he said through gritted teeth, and steered straight towards them.

In response they accelerated, swerving to overtake an articulated lorry. Up in the cab the driver stared at the two cars in amazement and blew his horn as the Ford swung dangerously close to his front bumper.

To Don’s horror he saw the rear window of the Ford opening and the next instant a pistol appeared, waving unsteadily in the blast of wind. The firer aimed it in Don’s direction and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Over the noise of the engines Don heard the thin cracks of the gunshots and saw the puffs of blue smoke erupt from the muzzle. Although the firing was appallingly inaccurate he knew that there was always the chance of a lucky shot finding its mark. And it wouldn’t even have to hit him. At that speed it would only have to rupture a tyre or other vital component to send his car spinning out of control.

He swung the steering wheel to bring himself directly behind the Ford, cutting the pistol’s direct line of fire.

�If you want me now you’ll have to smash your way through your rear window,’ he said.

By now the police car had closed to within thirty yards of Don and the Ford, but to Don’s surprise it headed straight for him, the policeman in the front passenger seat waving him to pull over and stop.

�Not me, you stupid fuckers!’ he mouthed through the window. �Them!’

He pointed at the Ford but the policeman ignored him, waving again for him to stop. Don shook his head in exasperation and put his foot full down on the accelerator, aiming straight for the rear of the Ford. Before its driver could react, Don’s front bumper rammed into the boot. The car veered to one side and Don watched in satisfaction as the driver fought to regain control.

�Try some of your own medicine, pal.’

He readied himself to take evasive action as he was certain that the gunman would try to hit him again, but it was the police car that reacted first. Believing Don to be the aggressor, the police driver swung towards him, intending to knock him off the road.

�Get away, you arsehole!’ Don roared. He stabbed a finger at the Ford again. �They’re the ones you’re supposed to be after!’

Once more he surged forward and hit the rear of the Ford, and this time he provoked a reaction. One of the men in the back seat leaned out of the window, the pistol in his fist, and loosed off a couple of rounds at him. Don swerved but one of the bullets punched through his windscreen. A cobweb of cracks fanned out from the neat hole and the bullet buried itself harmlessly in the passenger seat.

He stared across at the police car. �See what I mean, you gits?’

The policeman blinked back at him in confusion, looking from him to the Ford and back again. Don felt he could almost see the man’s brain working.

�That’s it,’ he muttered as he saw the policeman reach for his radio. �Who’s a clever boy then?’

As the police car reported the gunfire to its control centre, the driver pulled back from the chase.

�Well, that’s nice,’ Don shouted at them. �Leave it all to me.’

He looked up to see a sign flash past, announcing the approach of an exit. In the Ford he could see the men engaged in a frantic dispute. The driver clearly wanted to stick to the motorway but the others seemed to be against it. Sure enough, when the exit opened up before them several hundred yards further on, the car swung towards it and shot up the incline. Don followed hard on their heels but the police car was too slow to react and continued on past the exit.

By now the Honda had disappeared. Don had been so involved with chasing the Ford that he had lost sight of it. Nevertheless, he was resolved to catch at least part of the terrorist group. If he could only catch one of them an interrogation might reveal the whereabouts of the rest.

The last glimpse he had of the police car was of its brake lights stabbing on, smoke burning off the tyres as it screeched to a halt and the driver shot it into reverse to retrace his steps to the exit road. By that time the Ford was at the top of the incline, where a small roundabout forced it to slow down. The driver swung his car into the turn, heading off down the minor road that cut away across country. Keeping as close as he could, Don hoped that it wouldn’t be long before the policeman’s radio report yielded some help. He didn’t particularly want to get involved in a fire-fight with four armed terrorists by himself. It was all he could do simply to track them.

The road stretched away in front, hedges bordering it on either side with farmland beyond. A low mist clung to the barren fields and everywhere looked bleak and desolate. Driving at high speed was more difficult on the narrow road after the expanse of the motorway, but the advantage was that it was more difficult for the men in the Ford to get a clear shot at him. Nevertheless, every so often one of them would give it a go. The shots all went hopelessly wide but it was unnerving all the same.

A cluster of roadside cottages came and went. He was aware of a couple of white, staring faces flashing past before they were out among open fields again. He felt a grudging admiration for the driver of the Ford. The man obviously knew his stuff. It was a long time since Don had done the SAS fast-driving course, but he reckoned that the man in front must have been through some kind of similar training. He appeared to possess all the skills, and it was all Don could do to keep up with him. The slightest lapse in concentration would mean a crash and, at that breakneck speed, instant death.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of trying to get in a couple of shots himself. He realized that the chances of actually hitting anyone or anything were remote, but he might just be able to distract the other driver enough to send him spinning off the road.

He waited until the chase entered a long stretch of straight road with no houses on either side and then wound open his window. Next he reached under his arm for his shoulder holster and drew his Browning. Keeping his left hand on the steering wheel, he put the barrel under its fingers, gripped it tightly and cocked it. Having flicked off the safety-catch, he put his arm out of the window and rested the base of his fist on the car’s bodywork. Keeping the car aligned with the Ford in front, he fired off one round after another.

A small hole appeared in the Ford’s rear window, then another and another. The car swerved and for a moment Don thought he had achieved his aim, but against all the odds the driver maintained his control on the wheel. In the back, though, he could see that one of the men had slumped across the back seat.

�Gotcha!’ he shouted.

He fired again but a second later the hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He cursed. There were several spare clips of ammunition in the glove compartment, so, putting his pistol in his lap, he switched hands on the wheel and reached across to hunt for them. When he had one, he pressed the release button on the side of the butt and popped out the empty magazine, sliding in a fresh one, clicking it home on his knee and then cocking the gun as he had done before.

�A few more ought to do it,’ he said out loud.

He steadied his hand out of the window again and continued firing, but the cars were entering a series of bends and for a while he had to use both hands on the wheel, clasping the pistol between his knees, the muzzle pointing down at the floor.

�Don’t blow your balls away, Don lad,’ he muttered to himself.

The bends were tighter than he had anticipated and he fought to keep the car under control, but at last they pulled clear of them and after another group of houses the cars were once again out on an open stretch of road. He took up his pistol and aimed through the window again.

�This time,’ he said, willing himself to concentrate. �This time.’

The first shot again found the Ford’s rear window, and in the front of the car Don thought he saw the driver slump. He closed the distance a little and, sure enough, he saw that the man had removed one hand from the wheel and was clutching at his right shoulder.

�Bingo!’

The Ford started to slow, although in the front seat Don could see the passenger urging the driver on. For a minute or two it gathered speed again, but his bullet had clearly done its job, for the car was now veering all over the road.

�That’s it, lad. No need to crash. Just pull over and give yourselves up. Nice and peaceful like.’

Going into a corner too fast, the driver was unable to hold the road. He lost his grip on the wheel and the car careered up a bank and ploughed straight through a thick hedge and into the field beyond. Crows burst into the wintry sky from the surrounding trees, startled by the interruption. Don hit the brake, pumping it gingerly to control his emergency stop. Pulling up on to the side of the bank some thirty or forty yards further on, he pushed open his door and leapt out on to the road, his pistol in his hand. He knew it would be dangerous to go back to the place where the car had entered the field. If any of the men had recovered from the shock they would be expecting him from that direction.

Instead he scanned the hedgerow until he saw a gap beside a tree where he reckoned he would be able to gain access without making too much noise.

He dropped on to his stomach and wriggled up the slope. An old barbed-wire fence threaded its way through the centre of the hedge and he rolled on to his back to work his way underneath the lowest strand. For a moment it snagged on the material of his jacket but he managed to work it free and slithered underneath. The ground on the other side dropped towards the edge of the field, the ploughed earth striped into furrows, hard and bare as iron. He rolled out from behind the cover of the tree, bringing his pistol into the aim as he did so. The Ford sat out in the open, its skid marks visible right back to the hole in the hedge. In the front he could see the driver, slumped over the wheel, unconscious or even dead. Beside him, the passenger had shot through the windscreen and his limp body hung across the bonnet, half in and half out of the car. His arms were splayed and there was blood on his face.

�That’ll teach you to wear your seat-belt next time, mate,’ Don whispered to himself.

The rear doors were both open and there was no sign of the men who had been in the back. He knew that he had hit one of them, but how badly? And that still left the man’s companion unaccounted for as well.

Don’s eyes scanned the line of hedgerow. He knew they couldn’t have gone far and judged that they must have rolled clear as the car entered the field. Perhaps, once the driver had been hit, they had prepared themselves for just such an eventuality. If so, it had paid off.

As he wriggled out into the field Don caught sight of the men on the far side of the car. They were running towards a large copse, the one man helping his wounded comrade. As they ran, they kept glancing back over their shoulders. The moment he identified them, Don sprang to his feet and sprinted towards the car, keeping it between himself and the fugitives to prevent them from getting a clear line of fire on him. One of the men nevertheless loosed off a couple of wild rounds as soon as he saw Don, but both snapped past him harmlessly, cracking in the air like a whip.

Flinging himself down beside the wrecked car, Don gripped his Browning in a two-handed combat grip and then spun round the side, hunting for his target.

�Stop! Army!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.

In response the wounded man half turned and fired again. Don cursed under his breath and rattled off a double tap. It was as though the man had been slammed in the back with a sledgehammer. He hurtled forward, tearing from his companion’s helping grip, and sprawled face down on the hard, rutted earth. He moved for a second and then was still.

�Stop!’ Don shouted again. But the other man had made good use of the breathing space provided by Don’s first shots. Instead of trying to fire back, knowing that Don was behind cover and therefore almost impossible to hit, he sprinted the last few yards towards the copse, zigzagging as he went. Don fired another two double taps, but his bullets all went wide, and the next instant the man disappeared from view, diving through the thick bushes and losing himself among the trees.

To reach the copse, Don decided to take a roundabout route along the hedgerow. To risk crossing the field the way the man had gone was far too dangerous as he could well have been lying in wait. It would be no joke getting caught out in the open without a shred of cover.

There was no sight of the police follow-up and he could only assume that they had taken a wrong turning.

Brilliant, he thought as he darted through the hedge and began to snake along its outer side. They’ve probably stopped to issue a few parking tickets along the way.

About fifty yards along, the hedge veered towards the copse, leaving only about twenty yards of open space between it and the nearest of the trees.

�That’ll do nicely,’ he whispered, crouching down when he reached the bend and slipping under the wire. His jacket snagged once again and he made a mental note to lose a few pounds. Better get in some runs, he thought. I’ve been with the cops too long. All that riding around in patrol cars does sod all for the waistline.

Without pausing he was on his feet the moment he was through the hedge, and sprinting for the trees. Expecting to be fired at every foot of the way, he zigzagged, but a moment later he pounded through a screen of low-hanging branches and found himself in the copse.

It was gloomy inside. The trees stretched away in every direction and in between them thick bushes and undergrowth sprouted. The floor was a mat of sodden brown leaves and he felt the water soak quickly through the knees of his trousers as he crouched down to lower his profile. He steadied his breathing and listened. After the shots the rural calm had quickly returned. Somewhere far away he could hear a tractor in another field, and overhead a flock of geese screamed raucously as they flew by.

Suddenly he heard the crack of a branch and swung towards the tell-tale sound. He lowered himself on to his stomach and crawled steadily forward, holding his Browning in one hand and using the other to sweep aside the brittle dead branches lest he give his own position away with a similar signal. In the pit of his stomach he could feel the knot of tension curl into a ball, pushing his heart into his mouth until he had to stop and calm himself.

�Steady, lad. You’re behaving like some new kid on selection, for God’s sake. Get a grip on yourself.’

With his new resolve he moved on, slower than before, forcing himself to relax into the stalk, prepared at any second for a flurry of deadly exchange shots. There was another crack, this time towards the other side of the copse. He frowned, puzzled how the man could have crossed so silently in front of him without being seen.

This bugger’s good, he thought. Be careful, Don.

Painfully slowly he closed the gap between them, but as he drew closer he became puzzled. Where he had heard the crack of the twig he could now hear a shuffling. What the fuck’s he up to? he thought. Is he digging a sodding trench or something?

But then he was on him. The sound was coming from just beyond the next tree. Drawing his legs up under him, Don rose stealthily from the ground and prepared to rush forward. He took a deep breath, and exhaled. Then one more breath before he burst round the side of the tree. To his astonishment he found himself face to face with a roe deer. For a split second the creature froze, its round, startled eyes fixed on his own, and then it was off, scudding away across the open field beyond the trees, its white tail bobbing furiously as it vaulted over the iron-hard furrows.

Don threw himself to one side, aware that he had just given away his position, furious with himself for having been so stupid. It was a drill he had used a hundred times, rolling twice and coming up in the ready position, but never before had it paid off as it did now.

As he was halfway through the second roll he heard the crack of a gunshot and felt the sting of blown earth on his face. Bullets were ripping into the ground around him and when he came out of the roll, starting to return the fire even as he spun to face his attacker, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the man from the car, partially concealed behind a stout oak.

Don blazed at him, round after round, seeing them impact into the shattered bark until they found their target at last and the man was flung backwards. Without giving him time to recover, Don rushed towards him, his pistol aimed at the prone form. As he rounded the oak he saw the man was still alive.

�Freeze!’ he shouted. �Not one move or I’ll drill you!’

The man’s gun was a good yard out of reach, cushioned on a bed of leaves, still smoking.

�That’s it,’ Don said calmly, locking his eyes on the man’s. �There’s been enough killing for one day. Don’t make me shoot you.’

The man stared back fearlessly. His hands were under him and he seemed to be clutching something to his stomach.

�Show me your hands, mate. Nice and slow like.’

In answer, the man rolled slowly on to his back and Don gaped in horror at the hand-grenade he was cradling against himself. He had already pulled the pin and as Don watched he released the lever. It spun clear with a metallic crack and Don knew that he had only a second or two before the detonator exploded it, rocketing white-hot splinters towards him. Instead of throwing the grenade at Don, however, the man clutched it to his own stomach, simultaneously curling into a ball as if to wrap himself around the deadly object.




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