Land of Fire (37 page)

I whispered to Seb to put the door we had destroyed back into position again while I kept guard. I didn't want any passerby getting suspicious. Concha had thrown off her sheet too, and was waiting for orders. I checked the layout again in my head. The passage turned left and the soldier had come through a door. Most probably that door led directly to the guardroom, which must lie beyond the wall at the end. The prisoners were almost certainly on the other side of the wall to our right, accessible only through the guardroom for security. From somewhere close by I could hear a TV blaring and the sound of male laughter. With luck we would have a few minutes before it occurred to any of the soldier's buddies to wonder why he was gone so long and to come looking for him. Signing to the others to cover me, I moved out into the cross passage.

It ran for about four metres, ending in a wall with a fire extinguisher and two fire buckets, like military establishments everywhere. There was a solid door on the right, opening outward. I checked to see that the others were following and, turning the handle smartly, stepped quickly inside, rifle at the ready.

There was no one inside. It was a large room with whitewashed walls, and brightly lit. A swift glance took in two large desks and a number of notice-boards that looked as though they dealt with fatigue duties and orders of the day. An Argentine flag hung behind one of the desks, a Marine Division banner over the other. By the main entrance stood a water dispenser and a rack of useful looking M-16/M203 rifle-and-grenade-launcher combinations, ready for immediate use if the guard had to turn out. Otherwise the place was empty.

Immediately on my left was an open doorway into a darkened room, which had to be the mess room for the duty guard. Inside four men were seated around a TV, laughing over a porn movie, while a fifth, presumably one of those on watch, stood watching over their shoulders, his rifle propped against the back of a couch.

On the other side of the guardroom, on the same wall as the door I had come in by, was a metal grille that must give access to where prisoners were held.

Reaching inside the mess room, I snapped on the overhead light. Five faces blinked stupidly in the sudden glare, slowly taking in the M-16 pointed at them and the armed figures behind. I didn't give them a chance to recover. "On the floor," I said, pointing.

The standing man hesitated fractionally. His weapon was within reach and he was tempted to make a grab for it. But I was ready for him. Before he could move I swung the butt of the Armalite to catch him viciously in the small of the back. With a grunt of pain he fell forward across the couch, clutching himself. Seb moved forward and picked up the gun. Now there were two automatic weapons to cover five men, one of them disabled.

The rest of the Argentines had seen what might happen to anyone who didn't cooperate. They got down on their knees hurriedly, hands held skyward.

"Watch them," I said quietly to Seb. He nodded and took his stance where he could sweep the room. I went back out into the guardroom. Three strides and I was at the steel grille. There was only one guard on duty, a burly middle-aged Argentine with a narrow face like a rat who had evidently realised something was amiss and was scrabbling to unlock the door. He froze as he stared into the muzzle of the M-16, his mouth working soundlessly. I reached through the grille to twist the key in the lock and pulled the door open. The guard was trembling so much with terror he could hardly move; he must have thought I was going to shoot him on the spot. I took his gun and keys, spun him round and pushed him ahead of me to the holding cell.

There was just the one a long chamber with a floor-to-ceiling grille like the one I'd just come through. The guys were inside, our lot and Concha's friends together, propped against the walls, bound and hooded. The floor was wet and there was an open-topped 45-gallon oil drum in the middle of the chamber, so it looked as if they'd been given the drowning treatment having their heads ducked in a drum full of water with their hands bound behind them. Doug and I had watched that being done once on an op in Nigeria. It wasn't pleasant. Bastard Argentines.

I prodded the guard into a corner and made him squat with his hands on his head. Still keeping him covered, I knelt beside Doug. "Doug, it's me, Mark. I'm going to take the hood off, OK? Watch your eyes." He didn't respond. Probably he thought it was a new trick devised by the Argies. After ten hours of being blindfolded and bound he would be disorientated and exhausted. All his training would be warning him to trust nothing and nobody.

I rolled him into a sitting position and eased the hood up. He screwed up his eyes against the light and I guessed my face was just a blur to him. His torso was soaked, his body stank of sweat and urine, and he looked drained. I found a key in the bunch I'd taken off the guard which fitted his cuffs, and unlocked him. He gave a groan and eased his stiffened shoulders. He blinked again and cracked his eyes open. "Fucking hell," he croaked. "Where'd you spring from?"

"Never mind," I answered. "Can you stand?"

He grunted and I heaved him up. He leaned against the wall, gasping. "Jesus, I need a drink," he said thickly. Denying water and toilet facilities was standard softening-up procedure before interrogation.

"Doug, we have to get you and the others out of here." Briefly I explained. "We're going to have a fight on our hands soon."

Doug bared his teeth. "As it happens, I've been wanting to kill some of the fuckers."

I released Kiwi's hood and shackles. "Fuck, am I glad to see you, boss," he grunted when we got him free.

I handed Doug the keys and the guard's rifle. "Turn Nobby and Josh loose, the Argentines too. Kiwi, you come with me."

We ran back into the guardroom. Kiwi grabbed a weapon from the rack and gulped a long drink from the water fountain. Wiping his mouth, he joined me in the mess with Concha and Seb. "Right," I said, 'let's get 'em locked up and we can finish what we came here to do."

The rest of the boys were staggering out from the cells, stinking and gagging for water. "Fucking length of time you took getting here," Nobby grumbled. Josh was groggy but anxious to show he could handle it. There were a few bruises but no one seemed to have been badly roughed up and everyone was capable of fighting. They snatched up weapons from the racks and took up positions to cover the windows. Kiwi found a big old American Browning M2 a 0.5-inch heavy machine-gun on a massive tripod mount and dragged it to the end of the passage we had come in by to command the rear.

Josh and I herded the guards into the cell and locked them away. Two of the four Argentine civilians were in poor shape. They were older men and had not had the training to resist interrogation or known what to expect. One of them was being dragged between Julian and Seb while Concha jabbered rapid-fire Spanish at them.

She grabbed my arm as I came past. "This man cannot walk."

I shook my head. "He must walk or he'll have to be left behind. We're going to have a fight on our hands very shortly. We can't carry anyone."

Doug interrupted. "Hey, Mark, look what the fuck I got!" He had found a second weapons locker in the rear and come away with an armful of RPG-7 Soviet-made rocket launchers. The RPG-7 fires a rocket-boosted grenade capable of taking out a main battle tank at 500 metres. Fired into one of the hangars, it would turn an aircraft into an inferno.

"All prisoners squared away," Josh reported. He had a cut on the side of his head, but was looking better already. "I found the guy you locked in the cupboard. He was coming round so I brought him out and put him in the cells with the other lot."

"OK," I called. "Everybody check you've got enough ammo. We're moving out from the rear."

Concha was still trying to attract my attention. "It is a long way from here to the hangars where the aircraft are hidden," she said urgently. "More than 700 metres. What happens if we are seen and stopped?"

I shook my head. "We'll just have to take that chance and fight our way through. Come on," I said to the others.

"Wait." She dragged me back. "Why not take a truck? One of those out in front? Then we can put my friend in too."

I hesitated. The idea made sense.

"Even if we were seen, people might not suspect," she continued. "They would think it was just part of the maintenance for the runway."

She was right of course. A vehicle moving around would attract much less attention, particularly something like the snow clearer that had so nearly run her down.

I called to Nobby he was our mechanical expert and he came running back from the rear.

I took him to the window. "See those trucks parked out there? We need one of them." I explained the plan. "Something big and heavy that can take punishment." I had in mind that we might need to ram the doors of the hangar.

"Sure, boss. No sweat." He grinned. I'd never seen Nobby so happy. "I'll scrounge a few tools and bring you back anything you want."

While Nobby searched for the tools he wanted, I pulled back the shutter on one of the windows to check the front. The snow plough was still working on the runway, otherwise the scene was deserted.

Nobby returned with a long-bladed screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

"OK?" I said. He nodded and pulled on a coat that had been hanging on a hook by the door. I opened the handle to let him out. "Walk normally," I muttered. "You'll attract less attention."

"Aye, boss. Don't fret. I'll be back in a jiffy with the wheels." He set off, shoulders hunched against the wind, the image of a reluctant man ordered out into the snow against his will. I watched him from the door, my rifle at my side. He reached the group of vehicles and I saw him move along the line, checking each one. Finally he climbed up into a cab. There was a pause.

Josh joined me at the door. "Think he needs any help?"

"No. If Nobby can't start the fucker, no one can." I remembered Nobby telling me that, in his teenage years, before he'd signed up with the Army, he'd been a tear away joy-rider, whose greatest thrill had been breaking into high-performance motors then taunting the cops to chase him. There wasn't a vehicle built that could resist his assault for long.

We saw one of the vehicles switch on its lights, then heard the throb of a diesel engine as Nobby gunned the motor into life. We watched it pull out and make a wide turn to bring it round towards the guard post. It was a huge yellow truck with a massive dozer blade, like the one that had almost killed Concha.

"He's bringing it round to the car park at the back," I said. "Everybody get ready. I want everybody aboard sharply."

We grabbed coats and anoraks belonging to the guards and gathered in the rear passage. There were eleven of us now, five SAS and six civilians including Seb. "You get in the front," I told Concha as the headlights illuminated the guard post. "You can help navigate."

The truck was enormous, built like a tank and almost as big. The others scrambled up into the massive tipper at the rear, dragging the semi-conscious Argentine with them. It was half loaded with sand for gritting, but at least that gave the injured man something to lie on.

Kiwi staggered down the steps from the guard post, lugging the Browning. I lent him a hand loading it up. The thing weighed a ton, but its huge armour-piercing bullets would make short work of an aeroplane if we could bring it to bear. Doug was throwing up the RPGs to Josh. I saw him add three or four medical packs too.

Kiwi settled the machine-gun so that it could fire over the rear lip of the giant scoop. "What the fuck's happened to the rest of the Argies?" he grunted, already spoiling for a fight.

"I know. It's too bloody quiet," I said. "Maybe they're all busy with the assault force."

"Well we're ready for the bastards," he said defiantly.

The mood of the other men was the same; if it came to a battle they would go down fighting this time. No way were they going to endure another bout of capture and interrogation at the hands of the Argentines.

I saw everyone safely stowed, then ran round to the front and climbed up beside Concha and Nobby.

"Back on to the runway," Concha told him, 'then to the left."

With a grinding of gears we set off. The snow was still falling thickly. Nobby hunched over the wheel, peering through the screen. We reached the edge of the runway and turned north, following Concha's directions. I was tense with excitement. It seemed incredible to me that we could have come this far without being detected.

"There! Over there that is the fuel depot!" Concha cried, pointing. "The hangars are just beyond. You can see them now!"

I stared through the swirling darkness, and could just make out the familiar looming hulks of the giant hangars. We were almost there.

And at that moment a searchlight stabbed the night, illuminating us in its brilliant cone, and streams of tracer bullets tore towards us from every side.

It had been too easy. The enemy had been waiting for us all along. We had driven into another trap.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Trapped in the searchlight beams from our left, Nobby Clark reacted instinctively. Flooring his foot, he sent the huge truck careering across the apron towards the hangar. A hail of gunfire opened up from every angle, and bullets pinged off the heavy steel sides of the vehicle. Our headlights lit a Jeep-mounted GPMG, firing at us from almost dead ahead. I could see the tracer glancing off the snow plough blade like coloured beads. I wound down my side window, leaned out and aimed the grenade sight on my 203. I triggered the launcher and a huge flash engulfed the front of the Jeep as the round exploded on top of it. The gun stuttered into silence. A hit to us.

There was a screaming sound like tearing fabric, followed by a terrific bang. An armoured car was out there, throwing full calibre shells at us. It sounded like 105mm a single hit from one of those babies would turn us into scrap metal. A second round cracked off, and this time we saw the shell burst 500 metres beyond and well behind. Nobby was swerving to throw off their aim. The gunners were shooting wildly, probably firing at their own side's gun flashes; in a night action with excitable troops, chaos is often likely to result unless officers keep a firm grip.