Deathlist (2 page)

‘Look at these fucking jokers, Vic. Anyone would think they’ve just climbed Mount Everest.’

Vowden frowned at the ramblers. ‘As long as Hilary and his Sherpa leave us alone,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t give a toss what they think.’

Lampshade and Goatee caught their breath then trudged over to the cairn in the north-east corner of the peak. There was a small man-made pile of rocks with a National Trust marker struck on top denoting the height, 886m above sea level. The highest point in southern Britain. Vowden watched the ramblers out of the corner of his eye. Figured they were going to do what everybody did when they climbed the Fan. Pose for photographs next to the marker with the view behind them, maybe have a brew. On a clear summer’s day you could see as far as the Bristol Channel to the south and Carmarthen Bay to the west. But on a foggy morning like today, the view was crap. Grey cloud and mist in every bloody direction. The ramblers had picked a bad day for a tab up the Fan.

Then Lampshade stopped in his tracks and glanced slowly around the peak, as if checking that the coast was clear. He noticed the two instructors and marched over to them, grinning.

‘Morning, fellas,’ Lampshade said in a gravelly accent. Cockney, thought Vowden. Or maybe Essex. ‘Nice day for a stroll on the Fan, eh?’

Vowden gritted his teeth.
Here we fucking go
, he thought. There were always one or two civvies who tried chatting to the instructors and students on Selection. That was one of the problems with training in the Brecons. It was public land. Anyone could use the trails. Another problem was the firearms. Or lack of them. None of the instructors carried a weapon on Selection, and the students were only equipped with blank-firing rifles. Too much hassle, the top brass had said. Vowden disagreed. It’d only take one nutter looking to make a name for himself and the whole Regiment could be in trouble. He looked away from the rambler and fiddled with the Clansman, pretending not to have heard him.

‘What’s going on here, then?’ Lampshade asked, stepping closer to the instructors. ‘Some sort of secret SAS training, is it?’

Vowden snapped. He turned back to Lampshade and looked him hard in the eye. ‘Look, mate. This is an army training exercise. So mind your own fucking business. Got it?’

Lampshade flashed his palms. ‘Easy, fella. We don’t want any trouble. We’re just here to have a celebratory brew. We’ll be on our way soon enough.’ He turned to Goatee and winked at him. ‘Isn’t that right?’

Goatee grinned and nodded. He took off his beanie hat and wiped his forehead. The sweat was steaming off the guy’s head. Literally.

‘Now,’ said Lampshade. ‘How about that brew?’ Goatee smiled back. Said nothing. Replaced his beanie hat. As he took his hand away Vowden noticed that the guy had a tattoo inked on the side of his neck. A distinctive red cross with some letters written beneath it in a language Vowden didn’t understand. He wondered about that tattoo as Lampshade and Goatee both dropped to their knees and started rooting around in their daysacks. Then Lampshade shot to his feet and turned towards the instructors, and Vowden didn’t wonder any more.

Lampshade was gripping a semi-automatic in his right hand.

The pistol was a Glock 17. Every Regiment operator was trained in a wide variety of weapons, and  Vowden instantly recognised the Glock from its short barrel and polymer design. He’d used the same model dozens of times on ops and down the ranges. And now he was staring at the business end of one.

Vowden froze. So did Skimm. Goatee had also whipped out a Glock. The guy was training it at Skimm’s head at point blank range. The colour drained from the instructor’s face. He looked like the inside of a potato.

‘What the—’

Goatee fired before Skimm could finish the sentence. The pistol barked once and jerked up in his hand. A tongue of flame licked out of the snout and a round slammed into Skimm, punching a hole between his eyes big enough to drop a coin into. Skimm’s head snapped back. Blood sprayed furiously out of the exit wound, flinging shattered bone and grey matter all over the place. Skimm went limp. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. Then he fell away. He was dead before he even hit the ground.

Vowden reacted in an instant. He tried to dive out of the way of the pistol. He was fast. But not fast enough to dodge a bullet. Lampshade depressed the trigger twice. In the next moment, Vowden felt something hot explode inside his chest. Like being hit by a two-ton truck. The second round smashed into his right shoulder, pulverising bone and muscle. Vowden fell back and slumped to the cold, wet ground. He tasted something warm and salty in his mouth. Blood, he realised dimly. A kind of green slime closed in around the edges of his vision. Like a camera lens closing. He could feel the blood oozing steadily out of his chest and spilling across the rocks.

Then the camera lens closed.

The bigger of the two ramblers stood over the two dead Blades for a moment and admired his handiwork. So that was what it felt like to kill an SAS operator, Bill Deeds thought. It was a good feeling, he had to admit. Right up there with the pump from a good session on the bench press, or deadlifting a new one-rep max. Better, even. Deeds smiled as he turned away from the dead men and nodded at the guy with the goatee. Markovic.

‘Best do something about that,’ he said, nodding at the Clansman.

Markovic nodded back. He didn’t say much. None of the Serbs did. They weren’t really big on conversation. Markovic quickly went to work, trashing the Clansman and ripping out the aerial. At the same time Deeds stuffed the pistols back into their daysacks and scooped up the spent bullet casings. When they were finished he took a final look around the Fan, making sure they hadn’t been seen. Then he turned back to Markovic and nodded.

‘Right,’ said Deeds. ‘Let’s get a fucking move on.’

Five years, Deeds was thinking as he hurried towards the edge of the peak. Five years he’d waited to get revenge over these fuckers. The SAS had ruined his life once. Now they were going to pay. He smiled as he thought of all the proud young British soldiers who were going to die today. He imagined the bomb exploding, ripping them limb from limb, sucking their bodies inside out. He thought of all the heroes of the SAS lying in pools of blood, screaming for their mothers, and he laughed. In less than an hour the Regiment was going to find itself under attack. Deeds and the Serbs had a plan that was going to blow everybody’s mind. And Bill Deeds would finally have his revenge.

He glanced at his watch as he scrabbled back down the side of the mountain.

Fifty-seven minutes to go.

Fifty-six.

Fifty-five.

THREE

0625 hours.

It was the blisters that were going to do for him, Joe Kinsella decided.

I can take the backbreaking tabs through the mountains carrying heavy kit. I can deal with the cold and the hunger, and the constant exhaustion and anxiety. But if I fail Selection, it’s going to be because of these bloody blisters.

Kinsella could feel them under his training socks and boots. He’d picked them up during the big runs through the Brecons. Now there was a huge blister on his big toe, and Christ, it hurt like fuck. He’d tried to treat the problem by piercing it with a sterilised needle, but the pain was still there. He could feel it turning septic. Sooner or later he’d have to treat it properly, Kinsella realised. Otherwise he was in danger of coming down with septicaemia.
And then my chances of passing Selection will be well and truly fucked
.

He was sitting in the back of a Bedford four-tonner army truck, along with nineteen other green army students. They sat in cold silence as the four-tonner motored south along the A470, heading for the starting point for the Fan Dance. Diesel engine growling, icy wind blasting through the gaps in the canvas and scraping at the students’ faces. None of the guys had said much since they’d pulled out of the training camp at Sennybridge half an hour ago. Partly because it was the first week of Hills Phase, the students mostly came from different parent units and they’d not yet had time to bond. But mostly because they were dreading the day’s exercise.

For the past five days the students had been beasted rotten by the instructors on the Directing Staff. They had been taken on a series of big runs through the hills around the Beacons, carrying weighted Bergens and rifles. They had done sickening circuits of shuttle runs and push-ups and fireman’s carries. Now they were approaching the end of the first week of the Hills Phase, and Kinsella wondered how the hell he was going to make it through the day on his rag order feet. He closed his eyes and repeated the motto that had been drummed into him during pre-Selection training in 2 Para.

Push through the pain. Close your mind to it. Remember, pain is merely weakness leaving the body.

That morning had started like any other for the hundred and fifty guys trying out for Selection. Kinsella and the others had woken up at first reveille at 0400 hours in their dilapidated barracks, the air thick with the stench of piss and sweat. After performing their morning ablutions the students had made their way over to the camp cookhouse to scoff down the vast portions of starch and grease served up by the slop jockeys. They’d returned to the billets to collect their Bergens, then headed over to the armoury to retrieve their dud SLRs using the weapon keys that had been issued to each student on arrival. Then they’d formed up into two separate groups of seventy-five men each for the morning roll call at 0600 hours.

Kinsella had stood there in the icy darkness, listening to the chief instructor’s voice as he read out their names. The students all knew what was coming next. They’d been briefed on the day’s exercise the previous evening, and a list of names had been posted on the guard room wall so everyone knew which group they were in. After the roll call the students had clambered into the backs of the eight Bedford four-tonners waiting to ferry them down to the Brecons. Now Kinsella could feel his stomach muscles constricting with fear and self-doubt. The endless routine of early rises, hard runs and regular beastings were starting to take their toll on the young Para. He wondered if he really had what it takes to join the hallowed ranks of the SAS.

This is it now. No going back.

Do or fucking die.

‘Got a good one for you, mate.’

Kinsella popped open his eyes and looked across at his friend. Lee ‘Weasel’ Stubbs was a short, squat guy with a heavily knitted brow and a nose with more breaks in it than the
Guinness Book of Records
. Stubbs had joined the Paras at the same time as Kinsella. They had spent the past few years living in each other’s pockets in Patrols Platoon, A Company, going out on the lash in Colchester and drinking the town dry. Stubbs was a total gun nut with a dirty sense of humour, and he was the closest thing Kinsella had to a brother. When Stubbs had announced that he planned to try out for Selection, Kinsella had decided to give it a go as well. Seeing a familiar face among the strangers helped ease the anxiety brewing in Kinsella’s guts. He smiled warmly at Stubbs.

‘All right, Weasel. Let’s hear it.’

Stubbs rubbed his hands and grinned like a wanking Jap. The two of them had a tradition of telling each other jokes on the journey to the mountains each morning. It was something they’d started doing in 2 Para, and they found it helped take their minds off the pain they were about to suffer.

‘So there’s this doctor, right,’ Stubbs began, chewing on a mouthful of gum. He was never without a stick or two. ‘He’s been shagging one of his female patients, and after a while he starts to feel proper guilty about it. He’s tormented, right?’

The four-tonner bounced over another pothole in the road, shaking the troops crammed into the back. Kinsella nodded. ‘Go on, mate.’

‘Now this doctor, he goes to one of his mates and tells him how he’s feeling. His mate looks him in the eye and says, “Don’t worry. You’re not the first medical practitioner to nail one of your patients and you won’t be the last. You’re not even married, for fuck’s sake.”’

Stubbs paused. A smile trembled on his lips. Kinsella waited for the punchline.

‘Then the doctor speaks to the second friend. And this one tells him, “You might be a doctor, but you’re a veterinarian, you sick bastard.”’

Stubbs leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, looking pleased with himself.

‘Well?’

Terrible
, thought Kinsella.

‘Terrific,’ he said.

Stubbs grunted. ‘Telling you, mate. I missed my calling in life. I should have gone into stand-up.’

‘Yeah,’ Kinsella replied, widened his smile. ‘Put a wig on you and a pair of tits and you’re a dead ringer for Dawn French.’

Stubbs pretended to look hurt. ‘Take the mick all you want, but I’m telling you. Women like a fella who can make them laugh. I seem to remember it was yours truly who was getting the dirty looks from Becky down the King and Queen last month.’

‘Becky Morgan? Sweaty Betty?’ Kinsella raised an eyebrow and pulled a face. ‘That’s nothing to brag about, mate. She’s had more pricks in her than a second-hand dartboard. Even the tide wouldn’t take her out.’

The two Paras shared an easy laugh. Stubbs popped another stick of gum in his mouth, and for a moment Kinsella forgot about the hell that was waiting for them on the steep slopes of Pen y Fan.

He reminded himself that they’d both trained hard for this moment. For the past year they’d stuck rigidly to the same routine. A ten-mile run before breakfast, circuit training in the afternoons followed by thirty lengths of the swimming pool at the end of the day. In the months leading up to Selection they’d thrown in some orienteering sessions and hill reps, heading down to the Chilterns at the weekends and loading up their Bergens with heavy rocks. They’d race each other up the big hills, empty their Bergens and then scramble back down again as fast as they could. Kinsella and Stubbs were as fit as they’d ever been. The pair of them were literally glowing.