Who Dares Wins (24 page)

Jacob retraced his steps. The guard was in position to stop anyone getting into the compound; so the last thing he would expect was for an assailant to be there already. He approached the house from the back. The wall was not high – low enough to scale, certainly. Jacob pulled himself up and held on to the large spiky railings, a little taller than he was, to peer into the compound. All was dark. He heaved himself up. His feet clattered slightly against the metal railings, causing a hidden animal somewhere nearby to scuttle away; but he managed to get one foot in between two of the spikes and push himself over, landing heavily on the ground below.

He kept minutely still for a moment, waiting for the clump of his landing to dissipate and listening for any signal that he might have disturbed someone; but there was nothing, just the recurring howling of the animal in the distance. Jacob got to his feet, grabbed his handgun and crept silently round to the front of the house.

The guard was still there, in front of the gates, and still smoking – Jacob could see the smoke rising above his head. He crept towards the gate, his handgun outstretched. Within seconds he was standing right behind the unsuspecting guard.

He put the gun through the railings and tapped the end of the barrel twice against the man’s skull.

The guard dropped his cigarette and spun round. When he saw Jacob he made to grab his own weapon; but Jacob shook his head sharply and instead the man stepped nervously backwards.

The gates were not locked. The gun still pointing at its target, Jacob opened them and stepped outside. The guard couldn’t take his eyes off the weapon; so when Jacob delivered a sharp, sudden blow with his free hand into the man’s neck, it must have come as a surprise. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Quickly, silently, Jacob closed the gates, strapped the man’s rifle – an old Russian-made AK-47 – over his shoulder and dragged the body towards the garage. These doors were not locked either – why bother when there’s a security guard on duty? – so they were quickly inside.

Jacob worked with haste. He rifled through the security guard’s pockets, finding nothing more useful than a small amount of money, then turned his attention to the truck. There were several canisters of fuel in the garage, so he loaded these into the back along with the AK-47, before taking his place in the driver’s seat. No key. That wouldn’t be problem.

There were two ways he could start it. A screwdriver driven deep into the ignition with a hammer then turned with some kind of wrench would work; but there was no screwdriver, no hammer and no wrench, and besides, it would create more noise than he wanted to make. Better to hotwire. He pulled the plastic casing away from under the steering column and located the wiring loom, which he ripped out with a firm tug. There were five or six wires here. It was just a matter of finding which ones were hot. He touched two at a time together, methodically, and before long the truck had coughed into life.

Jacob jumped out and opened the garage doors. Seconds later he was away. He drove slowly through the village streets, sensibly, so as not arouse suspicion. But as soon as he was on the main road, he floored it.

Jacob Redman was happy to be getting the hell out of Dodge.

The mood in the Hercules was bleak.

No one spoke. They just sat there, all eyes on Craven’s bloodied body bag. Sam knew what they were all thinking: that it could have been any of them; that in situations like that, survival is just a fluke; that maybe, if one of them had looked another way or been a bit more on the ball, Craven would still be alive, joking with them in the afterglow of a mission successfully completed. But Craven wasn’t going to laugh with anybody ever again. And as they flew south, Sam wondered if the same might be true of himself.

He could feel the tension with Mac. His old friend was avoiding his eye. Sam didn’t really blame him. He didn’t deserve to be kept in the dark. Why then, was Sam doing it?

The plane shuddered. Just turbulence.

He was doing it, he realised, because he, too, was still in the dark. Jacob might be safe, or safer, but Sam had just as many questions and hardly any answers. And when you don’t know what you’re talking about, maybe it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

He thought of Jacob. Where was he now? Running blindly, no doubt. Keeping hidden. Wondering why the Regiment had been sent to kill him and how many others there were with the same aim . . .

It was fully day by the time the Hercules started losing height. Sam would never have thought it would be a relief to touch down in Afghanistan, but that was exactly how he felt. When the aircraft came to a halt and the tailgate opened once more, sunlight and warmth flooded in. Sam staggered, exhausted, on to the tarmac with his Diemaco slung over his back and the others following in a ragged group.

Members of the squadron were waiting for them. Not everyone, but at least twenty – enough to make it clear that word of Craven’s death had preceded them. They stood grim-faced and respectful, not saying anything to the returning soldiers, because they knew there was nothing to say. Sam avoided their gazes. Craven’s death wasn’t his fault; even if he hadn’t had other plans on that mission, the kid would still have bought it. But he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt. Keeping things from your mates like that wasn’t the Regiment way. Now that it was over, it made him feel bad.

By the entrance to the aircraft hangar where they had first arrived was the spook who had briefed them. He showed no signs of having been up all night. His clothes, despite the already uncomfortable heat, were neat. There were no bags under his eyes. He addressed Sam, because Sam was the first to arrive at the hangar.

‘Care to tell me what the hell went on out there?’

Sam stopped. He turned slowly to look at the man.

‘What?’

‘I said, care to tell me what the hell went on out there?’

Stay calm, Sam told himself. He could feel his blood like lava under his skin. ‘I thought,’ he replied as mildly as he was able, ‘that perhaps you could tell us that. There was a waiting party for us. Russian special forces. A bit of an intelligence fuck-up – I’d say it was
you
that’s got the explaining to do.’

A voice from behind. Mac. Quiet. ‘Take it easy, Sam.’

But the spook spoke over him. ‘Listen to me, soldier . . .’

Something snapped in Sam. Blinded by a sudden rage, he stepped towards the spook before he could even finish speaking, grabbing him by his collar and pushing him roughly against the wall. ‘
No
,’ he hissed. ‘You fucking well listen to me, sunshine . . .’ The spook weighed nothing; his square glasses fell from his face and his previous look of smug resolve had changed to one of alarm. Sam sneered at him, but as he held the guy up against the wall, the words just seemed to dissolve from his mind, leaving only the anger.

Hands on his shoulders, pulling him back. ‘Leave him, Sam.’ Mac’s voice. Not loud, but firm.

Time stood still. Sam felt the spook trembling. With a contemptuous flick of his hands he allowed the guy to fall. His knees buckled as he hit the ground, but he managed to stay standing. Back on terra firma, however, the anger returned to his face. He opened his mouth to deliver some sort of reprimand; but then Mac was there. Like a father hushing a small child, he put one finger to the spook’s lips. ‘Tell you what, pal,’ he said. ‘Do yourself a favour and shut the fuck up, okay?’

The spook looked at Mac, then at Sam, then at the half dozen other burly SAS men that had surrounded him. His face twitched.

‘Your flight back to Brize Norton leaves in half an hour.’

Mac nodded with satisfaction. ‘Good lad,’ he said, making no attempt to avoid being patronising. He turned to Sam. ‘Come on, mate,’ he said. ‘Let’s get ready.’

Sam looked down at the floor, suddenly embarrassed about the way he’d been with Mac. ‘All right,’ he mumbled.

They walked away together. But as they did, the spook called out from behind them, emboldened perhaps by the fact that they were leaving. ‘Don’t think that’s the end of it!’ he shouted. ‘You’ll pay for that!’ His voice sounded ridiculously poncy, like the bully in the playground of a posh school.

It just so happened that as the spook called out to them, Craven’s body was being wheeled off the Hercules. Sam turned back to the man, but this time he knew he could keep himself under control.

‘We already did,’ he spat. ‘We already did.’

And with that he turned, pleased to be leaving Bagram – and that nob-jockey spook – behind him.

*

He didn’t need a sleeping tablet to knock himself out on the return journey. None of the boys in the troop did. He simply hung his hammock on the other side of the plane to where Craven’s stretcher was attached and within minutes of being airborne he was asleep. A deep and dreamless sleep, despite the hum of the jet engines and the troubles of the night before.

It was around midday when they stepped out onto the tarmac of Brize Norton. The air was misty and damp – a thousand miles from the clear, dry heat of northern Afghanistan. With a sickening lurch, he saw a regular civilian ambulance parked close to the plane, its blue light flashing silently in the misty air, its rear doors open. That was for Craven; the rest of them were to be transported in the same two white buses that had brought them to the RAF base in the first place. Only this time, there was an addition.

At the foot of the steps leading from the aircraft, an MOD policeman stood counting them all off. He wore a white, open-necked shirt, black body armour and a protective helmet. In his fist there was a Heckler and Koch MP7. He didn’t look like he was there to welcome the lads back from holiday.

There were four more of them, all tooled up, all standing in such a formation as to encourage the men straight on to the buses. ‘What’s with the plate hangers?’ one of the guys asked the policeman at the bottom of the stairs as he passed. ‘Worried we’re going to run riot?’

The policeman remained expressionless. ‘Just move on to the bus,’ he ordered.

A silence among the men as they were herded by these armed police on to their transports, and not a happy one. As they took their seats, a discontented murmur arose. Sam and Mac sat together. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They knew something was wrong. They watched through the window as Craven’s body was loaded into the ambulance, then driven out of sight at a funereal speed, the vehicle’s flashing light like some kind of beacon. But it wasn’t the only flashing light they’d be seeing. Once the doors of the buses were closed up, two black police vehicles arrived. Their windows were blacked out, but they, too, had the emergency lights blinking on top. The convoy pulled away, one MOD vehicle at the front, the other at the back.

‘Where are we going?’ one wag shouted from behind. ‘Hereford or Wormwood bloody Scrubbs?’

A smatter of laughter. Sam didn’t join in; he glanced at Mac, who returned his look with a raised eyebrow. ‘I think our little secret might be out,’ he murmured quietly, so as not to be heard.

Sam looked out of the window. More British Army soldiers congregated glumly outside the main terminal building. The sight of the two white buses being escorted off the airfield supplied a welcome diversion for them: they stared as the squadron passed.

They were on the main road before Sam turned to Mac. ‘Thanks for your help back at Bagram,’ he said quietly. ‘That guy – I don’t know, he just got to me.’

‘Forget about it,’ Mac replied lightly. ‘I know what you Redmans are like when you see the red mist. Bunch of fucking lunatics. Thought you were going to do a J. on him.’

It was an inappropriate joke, but Sam smiled anyway. ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘We should probably try to chill a bit.’ He looked around to check nobody else was listening. ‘Look, mate, I don’t know what all this police stuff is about, but when we get back to base, deny everything, okay. This is my problem. I don’t want you taking the rap for it.’

Mac shrugged. ‘Whatever you say,’ he replied.

‘I mean it, Mac.’

‘Yeah,’ Mac replied. ‘I can tell. Look, Sam, I don’t know what’s going on. You don’t want to tell me, fine. But any time you need some extra muscle, you know where to come, right?’

Sam surveyed his friend. ‘Yeah,’ he replied brusquely. ‘Thanks.’

The gates to RAF Credenhill were already open when they arrived – clearly someone had radioed ahead to let them know they were on their way. When they came to a halt in the main courtyard the conversational buzz in Sam’s bus – which had fallen to a silence towards the end of the boring drive – started up again. Something was going on here. There were more police vehicles for a start, and quite a number of MOD officers all carrying their MP7s. One of them approached the back of the bus and opened it.

‘All right, you lot, out you get, but no moving from the courtyard.’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ It was Davenport and he sounded like he’d had enough.

‘You’ll find out soon enough. Come on, down you get.’

They de-bussed and started hanging around in groups. A few of the guys lit cigarettes. A lot of them grumbled. They were knackered. They just wanted to get back home and didn’t appreciate being treated like a bunch of jailbirds.

Sam stayed to one side. He didn’t chat with the others. He didn’t smoke with them. Something was coming that involved him. He knew that. He supposed he should be apprehensive, but he wasn’t. When you’d faced what he had, it took more than a few MOD coppers to put the wind up you, no matter what sort of hardware they were wielding. But he didn’t expect what happened next. None of them did. It was the talk of Credenhill for months to come.

There were stairs leading up to the main headquarters building. A number of figures appeared at the top: two more MOD policemen – they were swarming round this place like flies around shit; two men in suits, one old, one young, who Sam didn’t recognise; and Mark Porteus. The CO wore camouflage gear, as always; and the hard features of his scarred face were as proud and uncompromising as always. But everyone fell silent as they saw him, because his arms were in front of him, firmly handcuffed. One of the MOD policemen prodded him with his gun. No one did that to Mark Porteus. Not ever. But Porteus didn’t react. He stepped slowly forward, down the stairs. As he walked, his face scanned the crowd, as though he were looking for something or someone in particular. His eyes were narrowed, his forehead creased into a deadly serious expression.