'I gave him an eight point five for his Fear Up. Suited him better, in my view.' I parked my a.r.s.e next to Charlie, and lowered my voice. 'Where the f.u.c.k are they?'

'HF 51 KN.'

'What? You lost the plot?'

'The duty wagon. I shoved the magazine under the back seat. Better to hide it and take the chance it's still out there than hand it to Whitewall on a silver plate, eh? All we got to do now is get out of here, go and find the wagon, and use all that s.h.i.t to get us home. You up for it, lad?'

'Big-time. Especially the get out of here bit.'

He was joking, but he was right. f.u.c.k knows what the papers said, but as b.a.s.t.a.r.d had confirmed, they were important enough for every man and his dog to want control of them. I was a wanted man and that stuff sounded as though it was just what I needed to get unwanted. The tape wouldn't hurt our chances either, and if b.a.s.t.a.r.d really did have friends in high Georgian places, and a casting vote or two at Camp Vasiani, that stuff might be our ticket out.

'His name's Bastendorf. Remember him from Waco? We called him b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He commanded Alpha Pod.'

'I like the name, but I had f.u.c.k all to do with the Pods. He's hardly one to forget, though, is he? He recognize you?'

'No, and I want to be well out of here before he does. He's going back to the camp. If they've searched the wagon and found the gear, we're good as dead. Which is the way b.a.s.t.a.r.d and his mates wanted you in the first place.'

'You notice if the twins are carrying?'

'Not a clue. We've got to a.s.sume so, haven't we?'

He rubbed his bristles. 'What do you say we just call them to the door and take our chances? With that wagon gone, at least the head count's down.'

I rested my head against the rough stone wall. He was right; the longer we stayed here, the more the odds were stacked against us. 'That just leaves Hari and Kunzru watching Coronation Street Coronation Street... How are your hands? They strictly ballroom tonight, or up for a bit of action?'

'Sound as a pound.' He clapped them together, as if that proved anything.

'So, we checking out of here, or what?'

'Yeah, but not your way. f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, that's Mission Impossible Mission Impossible. Let's check the obvious first.'

We started groping along the walls for another door, or a hastily blocked-up window. We worked our way back round to the main door without success. I gave it a shove, top and bottom. The only resistance was in the middle, but it was solid. It was going to take a few big shoulders' worth to open it.

I put my ear against the wood, but heard nothing the other side. I ran my hand along the wall on either side of the frame, and it closed around a loose protruding stone. I suddenly had a thought.

I gripped Charlie's coat. 'Remember the Stoner in Colombia? That could be our way out.'

'Well f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, you're not just a nice pair of b.u.t.tocks, are you, lad?'

We got down on our hands and knees and felt around on the ground for more loose rocks. For this to work, we were going to need a couple each, big enough to fit in the palm of our hands.

Something the size of a brick would be the business.

2

Back in the late '80s, Charlie and I had been part of Thatcher and Reagan's 'first strike' policy in Colombia. The SAS were sent as advisers to help identify and destroy the cartels' drug-manufacturing plants in the rainforest.

We patrolled suspected areas, putting in OPs, planning attacks. We weren't supposed to carry out the attacks ourselves; that would have been one very hot political patata patata. We were there to aid and guide, usually one of us to every ten local anti-narcotics police.

Every time we gave the bad guys a slap on the wrist, they'd bring in the media and the politicians to celebrate, and we'd melt into the background and go and have a brew. The snappers were never told about an attack in advance. There was so much corruption that if you reported a sighting of a DMP, everyone on site would have evaporated in less than the time it took to snort a couple of lines of marching powder.

Even as it was, the attack helicopters would fly over the target compound, more often than not, on their way to pick us up. They didn't stop far short of trailing a banner advising the Cali and Medellin boys to leg it.

The day Charlie and I encountered the guy we came to call the Stoner, there'd been an operation that had gone as chaotically as normal. Most of the police had been chewing on coca leaves wrapped around a sugar cube, flapping big-time because they didn't want to get shot at. Half of them were only good for barking at the moon by the time the attack went in.

We didn't normally end up with too many prisoners during these attacks. The players stood and fought, and eventually got dropped, which suited us just fine. But this particular time one literally fell into our hands, because he'd been helping himself a bit too liberally to the merchandise. He was so out of it he didn't know if he was in the jungle or on the first manned flight to Mars.

While we waited for the circus to arrive, we put him into one of the 'factories', long sheds made of wood and sheets of wriggly tin, with long, low-troughed channels where the coca was laid out and made into paste. It wasn't exactly watertight as a detention centre. The one Charlie and I were in now was better.

Stoned out of his brain, he was still sharp enough to grab a rock in each hand. Arms wind-milling frantically, he made a run from the hut to the treeline, taking down anyone who came within range.

The four of us from the Regiment had been sitting around, making a brew; watching the police do a bit of foraging in the generator-run fridges and dead men's wallets.

The c.o.kehead had three guys down with severe lacerations to the skull before they gave up trying to arrest him and stopped him permanently with 7.62mm. The mixture of surprise and aggression worked well for him, and if his brain hadn't been so fried he might have got away.

We scrabbled around for a moment or two, but didn't have to look far. The walls were in bad shape, and the mortar was loose in places. It wasn't long before we had a couple of big flinty stones each. I felt my way to the door and tested the side opposite the hinges, trying to visualize myself ramming it. Just thinking about it made my shoulder hurt.

Charlie stationed himself to my left.

'I'll try first, old man.' I reached out in the dark, to move him back a little further. 'I'll give it three or four goes, then it's your turn. Once we're out into that courtyard and we're not stopped, it's got to be over the wall and take it from there. If we get split, let's be outside the Marriott every evening, somewhere within reach of that bus stop. Wait an hour between nine and ten. If we don't meet up after three days, we're on our own. OK?'

'Done,' he said. 'Now stop waffling and get on with it.'

'Listen...' I knew I was in danger of going soft in the head, but I wanted the stupid old fool to be sure of something. 'Before it all goes ballistic I just have to say... thanks for coming with me. You were a f.u.c.king idiot not to catch that flight, but thanks anyway.'

'You trying to get me back for what I said at the cemetery? I know, I'm a good guy, now shut the f.u.c.k up and get on with it, before you ask Hari and Kunzru to join us for a group hug.'

I reached out and touched the right side of the door with an outstretched fist. That was one pace. I moved back another two, making sure I kept perpendicular to it. The last thing I wanted to do was to charge into the wall, or hit the door at an angle. Either way, it would give Charlie a good laugh, but probably destroy my shoulder.

Two or three deep breaths, then I dropped my right shoulder and charged. The crash as I connected was so loud they must have heard it in Tbilisi. I reeled. I felt like I'd been hit by a car.

Charlie yelled, 'Get on with it! Come on! Come on! It's noisy now, stop mincing about.'

I took another three paces back, closed my eyes and ran again. It hurt like f.u.c.k, but the door definitely moved.

Charlie was straight in my face. He sprayed me with spit. 'And again! Again! Come on! Get on with it!'

Three paces back and bang bang. The door shifted a bit more and I sank to the floor in pain. I rolled to the right, out of his way. 'You go! You go!'

He crashed into it and the door immediately folded in on itself. The hinges had given way before the bolt.

I got up behind him, the pain in my shoulder and back masked for the time being by the adrenalin that was pumping around my body. We more or less fell into the undergrowth which lined the yard.

Two hurricane lamps jerked to and fro in the darkness as Hari and Kunzru bomb-burst out of the interrogation room.

I started running at them, windmilling like a man possessed.

The Georgians closed and I lost sight of Charlie as he went for the first one. The second got the contents of my left hand across his neck, or maybe his collarbone, I didn't know, didn't care. He screamed out as the rock in my right crushed his gigs against his face. The lamp slipped out of his grasp and I scored another hit on the back of his shoulder as he followed it down to the mud.

I kept swinging. I had to keep moving, keep hurting. My arms cartwheeled like a boxer on amphetamines.

I felt a hand grab my leg and I kicked it away. I brought both rocks down onto the back of his neck. The hurricane lamp rolled away, throwing wild shadows against the walls.

's.h.i.t, Nick...'

Charlie was in pain.

He was lying next to a limp body, trying to get up off the ground, but his left leg wasn't helping. I couldn't see any blood, but it was f.u.c.ked. The body below me writhed in agony, too preoccupied with his injuries to care about us any more.

I shouted out to Charlie. 'See if your one's got the keys! Keys! Keys! Keys! Money, anything.'

I fumbled in the pockets of my one's leather jacket and found a wallet, picture ID, empty holster on his belt, loose change and house keys. Charlie had more luck. 'I've got them! I've got them!'

I picked up the lamp and cash and scrabbled around to find my boy's weapon. It was a revolver, well past its best-before date, but it should still do some damage to whoever it was pointed at. I jammed it into my jacket and ran over to Charlie. He was trying to drag himself up the wall.

'Keys, where are the keys?'

I took them from him, hoisted his left arm around my shoulder and dragged him into the interrogation room.

We'd obviously interrupted a rather cosy evening. The radio was blasting out the Georgian Hot Hundred, and there were steaming mugs on the table, along with a car battery and a set of jump leads. It didn't take much imagination to work out how the boys planned to entertain themselves later on.

Charlie took in the brews. 'Stop, stop.' He poured them both into the empty thermos and we carried straight on out to a Lada estate. It wasn't locked.

I helped Charlie into the front right and eased myself behind the wheel. We were soon doing a twenty-five-point turn as I tried to head it back down the track.

Panting for breath, Charlie ripped open the glove compartment and checked it for anything useful.

I looked over at him. 'What happened?'

Charlie gave a not-so-convincing laugh. 'Slipped on the stones. I can't believe it. My ankle, I've twisted the f.u.c.king thing.'

'We'll sort it. You get any money? Weapon?'

'Got both.' His nose wrinkled. 'Oh f.u.c.k, I hate the smell of wet dogs.'

3

My foot hit the floor as soon as we reached the tarmac, and the Lada's engine made an awful lot of noise while it thought about responding. Eventually the speedo edged around the dial. I didn't think we were going any faster, but at least it made us feel better.

Charlie put the light on to check his badly cut left hand. It looked as if some of the flint had splintered and gone into his palm, but there wasn't much he could do about it, except apply pressure by ramming it against his leg. He opened the wallet I'd thrown at him with his right, and pulled out cash and a laminated ID card.

'Look at old f.u.c.king bone-dome here.'

The card belonged to Hari Tugushi. A declaration in Paperclip, Russian and English confirmed his official accreditation by the Georgian government.

Charlie wound down his window and lobbed Hari's wallet out into the night. Kunzru's soon followed before we got stuck into the brew, trying not to spill any as the Lada rattled down the road.

'You see that battery, lad?'

'Yep.' I didn't want to think about it too much.

'Wouldn't want those wires attached to your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, would you?'

'No.'

'They wouldn't have managed mine, of course. Those clips were way too small.'

I smiled at him. 'Makes you think though, doesn't it? These guys weren't f.u.c.king around. If they had their way, you'd never see Hazel and the grandkids again.'

'It's not ideal, lad.' He shrugged. 'But I'm dead anyway, remember? It's different for you.' He paused. 'Don't waste any time fantasizing about that little box-head of yours, though you should be working out how to get us across the border. It's your big chance to show the world what you picked up from the master.'

'That's the thing...' I hesitated. 'I have been worrying. I have been thinking about her. It's the first time something like that has ever worried me. You've had it your whole life, haven't you?'

He shifted about in his seat. 'f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, don't tell me you're finally thinking of joining the human race?'

'How did you mix it? You know, "What the f.u.c.k am I doing here? I'd rather be at home doing I don't know what, mowing the gra.s.s or finding the cat, or something"?'

'It was all about trying to hang on to the balance. And that meant finding somebody like Hazel, somebody who understood what was going on in this thick head of mine, and was prepared to live with it. But it's a partnership, lad, which is one of the reasons she's going to be p.i.s.sed off with me at the moment. After all those years, she thought she'd served her time, just like me.'

He had another look at his bleeding hand. 'But it's that f.u.c.king stallion in the paddock, Nick; that's what got to me. And with these f.u.c.king things starting to behave as if they've got a mind of their own well, I just had to do it without her this time. If you know they understand what's going on, even if they disagree, you don't have to worry about the Hazels of this world when you're in the s.h.i.t. You know they'll be counting on you to use what brain you have to get out of the s.h.i.t and get back home...' He tailed off. 'Make any sense?'

I nodded. 'Suppose so.'

'Good. Remember to write it down, lad. Something else you've learned from the expert.'

We must have been travelling for about twenty minutes along the valley floor when the Lada's engine started to groan and we headed uphill. As we approached the crest, I killed the headlamps and edged forward, hoping not to see a VCP looming out of the darkness below us.

It was worse than that. Less than a K away was a large cl.u.s.ter of American lights illuminating the rows of twenty-man tents and Portakabins. A few Ks beyond that, on the higher ground, was another light cl.u.s.ter. But these belonged to the Russians.

'Vasiani,' I muttered. 'I suppose at least we know where we are.'

Charlie looked up from his first aid. 'We'll have to bin Turkey for a while, lad. We need that gear back.' He nodded down at the lights. 'Listen, it'll be suicide trying to get in there and find the duty wagon. I say we go for it in the morning. At least we know where it'll be. Let the f.u.c.king thing come to us.'

'You think that wagon's going to be back on the road?'

'Course that thing's gonna last longer than me, lad. Whoever's running the transport pool down there would already have slapped on new tyres and done a jet spray under the arches. Come on, it's a f.u.c.king army, isn't it? What they holding it back for, forensics?'