Dead Centre (40 page)

I looked behind me. Mr Lover Man was gobbing off on his mobile. He saw me turn, waffled some more, then got up.

It looked like he was about to give me the phone. I moved the mike out of the way. ‘Tell him no, not now. Now’s not the time. Cut it. We’ve got work to do.’

Mr Lover Man’s face clouded. He didn’t like the fact his boss was being blanked.

I shifted the mike back into position and pointed to the blob ahead of us. ‘Can you get us down at the same time without those fuckers taking us apart?’

He nodded. ‘When that shed hits the ground it’s going to kick up so much shit they won’t even see their hands in front of their faces. But we’ll have to come in hard. I might lose my landing gear.’

I nodded. ‘Then we’ll just have to hope we don’t have too far to walk.’

Joe’s happy face disappeared. ‘That fucking boss man of yours better fork out for a new airframe, man. I got other jobs after this shit.’

27

MY EYES WERE glued to the Skyvan through the cockpit window as we rode the thermals across the miles of desert.

Joe had asked for a damage report. He muttered even more darkly to himself when he got the news. ‘Fucking shit, man. He
really
better pay up.’

I looked in vain for another AK mag, then unfastened the emergency box between the seats. Inside, among all the other stuff, were two yellow rectangular plastic containers of Pains Wessex mini flares. Each held nine cartridges and a pen ejector – penjector – fitted with a stainless-steel spring and striker pin. These ones would be red. They were rescue kit. The military used different-coloured ones all the time as signal flares. They normally rocketed to a minimum height of about forty-five metres, depending on the spec, and burnt for six seconds. The small magnesium payload blazed so intensely it could be seen for nine K in daylight and sixteen at night.

I grabbed both packs and shoved them in the waistband of my jeans. I checked that the iPhone hadn’t gone AWOL.

The flares were easy to fire. They had to be, in case your hands were wet and cold and shaking. You got the penjector and twisted it into the thread projected from the flare cylinder as it sat in its case. You pulled back. There was a sucking sound as the cylinder came out of its holder. Then you pulled back the cocking piece, which would compress the spring. When you let go, the firing pin shot into the back of the flare, and off it went with a loud bang. It started burning immediately.

A massive hand appeared between us and pulled the escape axe out of the emergency box. Mr Lover Man also needed a weapon.

Mr Lover Man gave me his thousand-yard stare. It told me that if this ended up as a gang-fuck, the axe was for me. I moved the mike aside. ‘Get your mate up here.’

When Genghis appeared, I moved behind the seats so I was up close to both of them. I pointed to the Skyvan. Its tailgate was still down but we were too far away to see what was happening inside. The point was, we were both much closer to the ground now.

‘Listen in. As soon as they land, so will Joe – right on top of them, while the dust is up. We’ve got to be really quick. Get in there fast and take those fuckers on. Hopefully the ramp’s still going to be down. I don’t know if you can land with it like that, and I really don’t care. We’ll find out when we get there.’

Mr Lover Man translated. Then he turned to me. ‘We will kill them all. Mr Timis wants them all dead. All of them.’

I got it. If I’d zapped Stefan, that included me.

‘I will take care of Stefan. That’s still my job, to get to the boy. OK?’

Both of them understood what I was saying that time.

‘Justin – he’s not going to kill Stefan unless he knows he’s lost. At that point, he won’t give a fuck. So we must let him think he’s got a chance. We let him escape out of the aircraft. If we get in there and corner him, Stefan is dead. Let him run. I know him. I know how he thinks. I’ll get the fucker.’

Mr Lover Man wasn’t happy at all, but fuck him. ‘You want the responsibility of fucking up and getting the boy killed? Do you?’ I poked his chest. ‘I’ll take that fucking responsibility. Just like I did hitting the fuel tanks. Let Justin get out of that fucking aircraft, think that he’s running. I’ll sort him out. Don’t corner him.’

Joe rejoined the party. ‘This is it, man. The fucker’s dumping down. He can’t make it to the town. We’re about twenty klicks short. The moment I get you on the ground, I’m going to fuck off while there’s rounds flying about. That’s if you want an airframe to get you home, man.’ He played about with his instruments, his eyes constantly flicking up to lock onto the Skyvan and the terrain below. ‘Assuming I’ve still got fucking landing gear in five minutes’ time.’

I ripped off the cans and went and started pulling up the shutter. The Cessna descended. Mr Lover Man put his body armour back on and Genghis checked his M4.

He saw me looking at it and the scowl I got in return told me it was staying where it was.

28

THE WIND RUSHED in but not with such force now. We were lower and slower. The scrub was no more than two hundred feet below us.

I stuck my head out into the slipstream. The Skyvan was touching down ahead.

The Cargomaster’s engine revved higher as Joe corrected. Mr Lover Man and Genghis watched the action from behind the seats.

Power back. The plane slowed. We hit the final fifty feet.

Frank’s lads moved back with me and took up position in the doorway. A huge dust-cloud erupted and swallowed the Skyvan. Grains of sand pitted my face.

I could see the Skyvan’s wheel-prints in the hard red crust directly beneath us. Joe was making sure he landed on proven ground.

Our wheels touched. Joe braked as the Cargomaster bounced towards the dust-storm.

Mr Lover Man jumped, curling his body, ready to take the hit on his Kevlar. Genghis followed. The Cargomaster was bouncing along at about thirty miles an hour. We’d only been down for two seconds.

Fuck it. Why not? I pulled out the mini-flares, gripped one in each hand, and went for it.

The thump as I hit the ground drove the wind out of me. I rolled into a bush, dropping one of the flare packs. Inch-long needles pierced my skin, but I kept on rolling.

I finally got up, spitting out sand and grit.

Genghis sprinted past me. He disappeared into the dust-storm, weapon at the ready. Mr Lover Man was no more than a metre behind him with the axe.

I retrieved the flare pack and started to leg it after them.

29

JOE REVVED HARD, taking off to the left of the Skyvan. The shed was static, but its engines were still running, still stirring up a maelstrom of red dust. There were shouts from inside. I could hear the signature of 5.56 being fired.

I ran to the right of the cloud, to get ahead of it, and dropped into a dip, panting, trying to get oxygen into me. My feet told me there were needles in them too.

There were more shots inside the Skyvan. The props began to wind down. One of them coughed to a halt.

BB stumbled out of the front of the storm, M4 in hand. No Stefan. Fuck.

I willed my body deeper into the sand.

BB turned and ran back, then reappeared almost immediately, dragging the boy. He threw him over his left shoulder. Weapon in the right hand, he headed west, his back to the sun, kicking up grit as he went. He knew where he was going. Even in this heat and with the weight of the boy, BB could cover the twenty K to Jilib in short order.

He didn’t look back. He knew there was no need to. He just had to make distance.

A couple more rounds went off as the second prop coughed and died and the cloud began to settle.

I set off behind them, keeping to the right, using the cover of the bush as best I could. The Skyvan soon disappeared behind me.

I pulled off the top of one of the mini-flare sets to expose the penjector. I took it out, screwed it onto a flare, and pulled it out with a gentle pop. I kept on running. It was vital that BB didn’t see me. His M4 was accurate to about three hundred metres. The flares weren’t accurate at all.

BB disappeared into a stretch of scrub and heat haze and didn’t come out again. My feet slipped in the sand as I tried to make ground, still using the cover.

BB might be fronting it. Going to ground, staying concealed. We look for him, we lose him, and at last light he moves off.

It was what his training would be telling him to do. And he would have the bottle for it. He might even know I was behind him, and be waiting for me to move into his weapon sights. What’s the point of running if there are people behind you that you can’t shake off? Stop, take me on, kill me, and then keep going.

This wasn’t a frightened animal I was chasing. It was a highly trained ex-SAS trooper with a score to settle and a big cash prize ahead of him.

I moved right of the point where he had become unsighted.

Slowing down now. Throat burning. Head burning. Relentless heat.

I kept low but fast, not daring to lose ground. Within a few seconds, I came to a dried-up watercourse. It was three metres deep and a couple wide after centuries of angry flash floods. I lay down at the wadi’s edge and scanned its bed, left and right. There was no sign. No sign at all. No one had been along here in any direction. He must still be somewhere down on my left.

Feet first, penjector in hand, I slipped slowly down the bank. When I hit the bottom, my left hand supported my right, as if I was holding my Glock. My body became a firing platform. My legs were shoulder-width apart, left foot forward so I turned forty-five degrees to the direction I was heading. I was balanced forward and back, left and right, as I started to move along the wadi.

Only my trigger thumb was free. It was the only thing I allowed to move as I kept the flare ahead of me, in my field of view.

30

SLOWLY, IN BOUNDS, as if I was patrolling, I kept moving, using the wadi as cover. I came to a bend. I stopped and listened before inching round it, weapon up, into the dead ground.

The watercourse twisted and turned, casting shadows, as it headed east towards the sea. The sun was now facing me. It burnt into my face, making it hard to see. I stopped short of another bend, listened again, then carried on, keeping low, hands up in the aim.

I negotiated a left-hander and heard a whisper ahead. I stopped. Leaning towards the sound, left ear pointing towards it, I held my breath so I could hear what the fuck was going on three – maybe even six or seven – metres away.

The whisper became muffled. I could only just hear it.

I dried my right hand in the dust on the side of the wadi then replaced my thumb on the cocking piece. I brought the flare back up into the firing position. Sweat dripped off my forehead and stung my eyes. I shook my head. The sun glared down even more fiercely into my face.

I started to edge round the corner. I could just see BB, sitting beneath an overhang in a stretch of shade, knees up, facing back the way he had come. He had the butt of the M4 in the shoulder, right hand around the pistol grip as he squeezed the forward firing handle between his knees to keep the barrel pointing up to the lip of the wadi. His free hand was around Stefan. He gripped the little boy’s mouth, bringing his head tight against him, to keep him quiet.

I took another pace forwards. I needed to get as close as I could before this went noisy. I thumbed back the cocking piece. Stefan was between us, in the path of a clean shot. He was going to see me first. But that was just fine. I
wanted
him to see me. I wanted him to start the commotion that would get BB to move, to bring the weapon down and turn it towards me. But not just yet.

I kept the weapon up towards the target, my support hand still wrapped around the dominant one, my shoulder forward so my nose was closer to the target than my toes. My right arm pushed the weapon towards BB as my left exerted rearward pressure, so the platform was rigid.

I kept moving forward, closing in.

Stefan saw me, saw my weapon. He screamed into BB’s hand and struggled to free himself as I approached. Not surprisingly, after the events of the last twelve hours, he didn’t seem to know whether I was friend or foe.

I kept both eyes fixed on the target, dead centre of mass of the two bodies. The flare on the end of the tube came into my vision and became my primary focus. The target and the cocking piece were now just blurs. I focused on the flare with both eyes.

BB’s head swung round as he tried to tighten his grip on the boy. His eyes locked onto me. No surprise; no anger. Just confidence. Knowing what he needed to do. His unmoving stare didn’t leave my centre mass. The rest of his body came round, with the weapon, to align itself with his head. The M4 came up.

He let go of the boy. He needed his left hand to grip the firing handle on the forward stock. As Stefan stumbled and fell, BB’s sights came into his focus.

I kept static, keeping a stable platform for the flare.

I let go of the cocking piece and the flare kicked off with a loud bang. A split second later, a blindingly bright ball of flame was burning into his thigh like molten lava. He stumbled backwards, loosing off a short burst into the side of the gully.

The rounds thumped into the dried mud metres away from me.

31

BB’S SCREAMS ECHOED up and down the narrow channel. The magnesium would consume the flesh until all the oxygen in it was used up. He lay in the dust, his body jerking as he took the pain and the shock of being hit. Flesh sizzled and dense white smoke poured out of the open crater in his leg.

Stefan stood transfixed.

I grabbed him with both hands, pushed him, trembling, up the side of the wadi. ‘Go! Go to your godfathers.
Go!
’

The sounds coming out of him were pure animal fear. ‘Where?
Where?
’

‘By the plane. Get up there and you’ll see ’em. Go! They’re waiting for you!’

He got to the lip of the wadi but stayed rooted to the spot, looking down at me. I lobbed a stone at him. ‘Fuck off! Go!’