I got the roll of plastic wrap from the bergen and pulled off the best part of a meter. Leaning over to my left, still trying to keep my eyes on the target, I undid the b.u.t.tons of both sets of trousers with my right hand, and pulled them down, along with my pants. I then got the plastic in my left hand and tucked it under, ready to receive. I started to want to p.i.s.s; I wasn't going to rummage for the gas can at this stage of the proceedings, so I just had to restrain myself while I got the main event out of the way. I wrapped the first handful in the plastic and put it to one side, pulled off another length, put it underneath, and carried on. Having to do this in the field is never an easy procedure, especially when you're lying on your side and in fits and starts, because it's got to be controlled. It's unpleasant, but there's no way around it.

The drizzle was now trying hard to become something more grownup.

I could hear the first raindrops. .h.i.tting the leaves above me. I was about halfway through the second lot of plastic wrap when the LED on the phone told me I had a message waiting.

At the same moment, I heard a voice--male and American. I switched off the phone and thrust it and the 3C in my pockets. I looked out of the hide at the movement of the trees, trying to gauge the direction of the wind. It was still coming in from the lake. The American was on his own, coming out of the garage doors and heading toward the boat.

Trying desperately to control my sphincter and bladder, I watched as he moved the boat out of the way of the garage doors. I guessed he was going to park up the Explorer. He climbed into the driver's seat and revved the engine. All the curtains in the house were still closed and there was no other sign of movement.

There are quite a few times on tasks when you really have no alternative but to s.h.i.t yourself, especially on urban OPs where you're in a loft s.p.a.ce and there are people downstairs. You try not to do it, because you might have to go out into the street straight afterward and operate like a civilian, but sometimes, if there's no room to move, it's just got to be done. The only precautions you can take are to not eat before the op, drink as little as you can, and pop some Imodium--then hope for the best. It's a bit like the KitKat commercial, with the photographer outside the panda house at the zoo: you could have been lying in an OP for four weeks, but the moment you get the plastic wrap out, the panda emerges and does a quick impersonation of Fred Astaire.

I'd guessed correctly. By now the 4x4 was in the garage, the boat was back in position and he'd gone back into the house. I finished off the job with the plastic wrap and gas container and pulled up my trouser bottoms.

I was feeling quite sorry for myself; the only consolation I could think of was that plastic probably did the job better than the shiny stuff in the car park toilets would have done.

I tore off another big length of it, wrapped up all my offerings and popped them straight into the bergen. It would help to hide the smell, which in turn meant it wouldn't attract flies and animals. I then tucked the fuel canister back into the bergen as well, doing my bit for eco-tourism.

I'd learned my lesson. I dug around in the day sack for the Imodium and took another six capsules, probably enough to constipate an elephant. I lay down again with my hands resting under my chin, looking at the target, but after a couple of sniffs I decided to rub them with soil and keep them away from my face for a while.

On target, nothing else had changed. The curtains were still closed.

In the hide, it was now wet and miserable. The rain was starting to fall more heavily; the noise of it hitting the trees increased and it was dripping from the foliage, through the cam net, and running down my face and neck. I brushed away a small twig that had stuck to my cheek. Sod's law of OPs was at it again; I knew it would only be a matter of time before it percolated down onto me in a steady stream.

I got out the phone again. Sheltering it under my chest, I switched on the power, tapped in my PIN and dialed Kay's sweetshop then *2442.

They would be transmitting one-time pad number groups to me, exactly as I'd done to them, except that the groups would have been recorded on a continuous tape, which would keep running until I acknowledged that I had received it.

I cradled the phone to my ear and listened as I switched the Psion to word-processing mode. As the woman's voice recited groups of five digit numbers, I tapped them into the keyboard. It was easier than writing them down.

"Group six: 14732. Group seven: 97641. Group ..."

I knew it had got to the end of the message when she said, "Last group: 69821. End of message. Press the star key if you require the message repeated."

I did. I then had to wait a few moments for the message to repeat itself so I could receive the first five groups. Up it came again: "You have a" pause, different voice "sixteen" back to normal voice "group message. Group one: 61476. Group two ..."

When the taped message had come full circle, I switched off the phone, put it away and transferred the groups onto paper. I'd never been up to doing the math on the Psion, and by the time I'd got the hang of it I would have been up for retirement.

The rain was coming down in earnest. Keeping my eyes on the house, I pulled the hood up around my neck to cut out what was pouring through the cam net. I couldn't cover my head, however, because that would degrade my hearing.

Armed with the number groups, I was now going to do the reverse of what I'd done earlier: look for the recognition group on the one-time pad, then subtract each group from the ones that I had on my OTP.

Once I'd done that, I put the flash card back in my jeans pocket and got out the one that held the codes. They came up on the screen and I worked out the message. The first lot of groups were the introduction-date, time groups, all that sort of stuff. Then I got to the meat of the message: 61476 EXTRACT.

97641 TARGET.

02345 BY ANY MEANS.

98562 CUT OFF TIME.

47624 DTG (date time group, times local) 82624 APRIL 27.

47382 0500HRS (times local) 42399 FOR.

42682 T104.

15662 ACKNOWLEDGE.

88765 02442.

"Extract target" was easy enough to understand: they wanted me to remove Sarah from the house by 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. Fair enough.

It was the next bit I couldn't believe: "T104."

"T" plus a numeral is a code within a code, for brevity. There are quite a few T commands, and they have to be learned parrot fashion, as nothing about them is ever written down by anyone, anywhere. They don't officially exist, and the reason is simple. T is a command to kill.

They wanted me to kill Sarah.

Not only that, but 104 meant without trace: the body must never be discovered.

Elizabeth must have been more p.i.s.sed off at being summoned to Northolt on a Sunday than I'd thought. Either that, or they'd told me even less about the operation than I suspected they had.

The wind gusted and the heavens opened, as if to confirm my feeling about the T104.

redialed.

The recorded voice said, "You have no new messages." There was a pause, then she started to give out the introduction for the groups already sent. I checked them against the ones I'd written down, and went through all the codes again.

As I protected the 3C from the rain I knew there was no mistake. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly, wiping away some water that had splashed down my cheek.

I'd been a young infantryman when I'd killed my first man, an IRA terrorist.

I'd felt good about it. I thought that was how you were supposed to feel. After all, it was what the Army did for a living. Later, I got more satisfaction from stopping death than causing it. However, if the task was to kill, it didn't particularly worry me. I didn't celebrate the fact, but neither did I complain. I understood that they had sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, but they were players like everybody else, including me. And at its most basic level, if somebody had to die, I'd rather it was them than me. My only concern was to try to make it as quick as possible--not so much for their benefit, but to make it safer for me.

This T104 was different. This was the second time I'd had to kill someone I'd been close to. Considering there was only Josh left who resembled anything like a friend, I couldn't help wondering what the f.u.c.k was going on in my life. Euan had been my best mate for as long as I could remember, but he'd used me--worse than that, he'd used Kelly. Now the only woman I'd ever felt really involved with had got herself into a world of s.h.i.t that I had to wipe clean. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and realized it. I had to cut out of this; I needed to get real.

I deleted from the flash card the groups that had been used for the two messages, and ate the small piece of paper I had used. No one would ever be using that combination again--that was why it was called a onetime pad--and no evidence of any T104 would ever be seen, since all details are destroyed once used. I put the two flash cards back into separate pockets in my jeans and turned off the 3C, getting it out of the rain.

Everything that Elizabeth and Lynn had said was making sense to me here on the ground. They knew the big picture, I was sure of it; maybe the imagery I'd Mac'd down to them had confirmed their fears. Was there a connection with what she'd got up to in Syria? I didn't even bother to think that much about it. I didn't really give a f.u.c.k. Even if, say, this group was planning to hit Netanyahu, Arafat, Clinton or even the whole job lot--so what? I remembered the footage after Rabin had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, and sure, I saw his niece, or whoever it was, speaking at his funeral.

I understood that it must be sad, but I wasn't personally affected. To me, it was just one more dead person amongst the thousands on both sides in Israel who'd been bombed and shot over the years. I didn't get worked up about political murders, even when they were closer to home, which usually meant Northern Ireland. f.u.c.k 'em, we all have to die sometime. Live by the sword, and all that. They were all as bad as each other.

For all I knew, there could be ma.s.sive ramifications to whatever Sarah was involved in. This crew could be plotting the murder of thousands of people. Maybe the U.S.A."s fear of chemical or biological weapons being used in their backyard was becoming a reality here and now, in a holiday home in North Carolina. It would be quite easy to contaminate, say, the entire water supply of D.C. Even if it were partial contamination, the right sort of disease would quickly spread itself around. Making one person history can often mean saving many others; it was simplistic, but I always saw such Ts in terms of putting a round into Hitler's skull in 1939.

I knew I was trying to keep emotions out by looking at it logically.

Maybe the Americans had now been told what was going on, and would be hitting the target as soon as they got sorted? In which case, it stood to reason that Elizabeth wouldn't want Sarah to be found on target.

So extract her, drop her, make sure she's never found. Who knows?

I forced myself to cut away from conjecture; it had no bearing on the order I'd received, and I'd probably come to the wrong conclusion anyway.

Either way, I just didn't want the job.

I was watching the house through the misty rain in a sort of daydream.

I gripped myself again. f.u.c.k it! If I carried on thinking like this, I'd end up howling at the moon and dancing around the maypole or whatever tree huggers do. Maybe I'd been reading too many books about kids and their emotions; maybe all the touchy-feely c.r.a.p was getting to me. I decided to bin it; get the tree-hugging ca.s.sette out of my head and put the work one back in. Sarah might have lots of plans, but as far as I was concerned long life wasn't going to be one of them.

The rain was bucketing down. I pulled on the hood string, trying to stop the water running down my neck. I was getting very cold. I forced myself to focus on a mission a.n.a.lysis, and to look at the factors that could affect it; only then could I carry out the task and have a chance of getting away with it. If I wanted to kill the president of the United States, n.o.body could stop me, but getting away with it would be the hard bit.

The first thing I had to do was understand my mission. What was required of me? It broke down into just two parts: first, I had to get her out of the target area by 0500 hours tomorrow morning; the second part, the T104, wasn't important at the moment. Besides, I already knew how I was going to do it.

I broke down the first part of the job into five phases: one, approach the house; two, make entry; three, locate Sarah; four, lift and exfil from the house; five, exfil the area.

Next I had to look at what might stop me carrying out those five phases. The first obstacle was obviously the men with her. There were far too many of them for comfort, and for all I knew there could be even more inside who hadn't poked their heads out yet. What were their intentions?

f.u.c.k knows. It was a safe bet, though, that they weren't there for the canoeing.

It looked as if the place was an RV point. At some stage, therefore, they were going to leave, and maybe that was the reason she had to be lifted before five o'clock in the morning, because they wouldn't all be staying together in one place for long.

The next question: What were their tactics, training, leadership and morale? I could only guess. Certainly their leadership would be good; either Sarah would be in charge herself, or if she wasn't, then whoever was would have to cut the mustard, or she wouldn't be working with them. As for their morale, that looked just fine. They seemed confident about what they were doing, whatever that was. Ninety percent of people's confidence can come from total stupidity and no understanding of what's going on, and only 10 percent because they are well trained and well prepared.

Sarah would only be in a group where confidence was backed up with ability.

What were their capabilities? And did they have weapons? I had no idea. All I knew about was Sarah as a person and an operator, so I knew that she was professional, ruthless, focused and capable of killing. If I got into the house and she saw me first, she'd kill me if she had to. She would fight rather than be taken. Strangely enough, that meant that I wasn't so worried about her, because she was quantifiable; but the other guys I didn't know if they would fight, and what with. I had to a.s.sume the worst; it always pays to a.s.sume that the other players are better than you are, and plan accordingly.

I didn't have a lot of information to go on, but what was new about that? It wouldn't be the first time that I'd had to go into a situation blind. It just p.i.s.sed me off that I'd positively ID'd her. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't. Maybe. I found myself half hoping that everyone in the house would clear off in the next few hours. Then there would be nothing I could do but start on the trail again.

I began to run through everything I'd seen so far, trying to think of something I'd forgotten. The subconscious is wonderful, because it never forgets what it has seen or heard. Every sight, sound and fragment of perception is tucked away in there somewhere all you've got to do is drag it out. Maybe, for example, I'd seen a weapon without actually realizing it?

Nothing came to me.

Now I had to look at the ground where I was going to carry out the mission. First of all the general terrain, and that was of no concern because I was sitting on it. I could almost spit at the target; it wasn't as if I was heading into an area I'd never seen before.

The one factor that did worry me was the "vital ground," which in this case was the fifteen meters this side of the house that I reckoned to be within range of the proximity sensors and lights. How was I going to approach the target, let alone penetrate it?

I scanned all the doors and windows for any information that would help me make entry. I had seen through the binoculars that the lock on the garage side door was just an ordinary pin tumbler inside a large k.n.o.b handle, much like those on motel doors very common, and not difficult to defeat. The far bigger problem would be whether I could get near the lock in the first place without the detectors going ape s.h.i.t I had a clear picture of what my mission was. I knew all that I could about the enemy at this stage, and I knew all that I could know about the target or as much as I could for the time being. Now what I needed to work out was "time and s.p.a.ce" how much time I had to do what I had to do. As I lay looking at the target, pushing my hair from my forehead as it was starting to act as a channel for the rain, I thought about the five phases and tried to work out plans for each one.

I looked at the approach. I visualized all the different routes, as if I were sitting in comfort, looking at a monitor connected to a live-feed camera with someone who was moving along each possible approach in turn.

I next considered different ways of making entry. I visualized working on the locks, and what to do if I couldn't get in that way. Not that it would necessarily work, but at least I'd have an alternative. Deniable operations are not ascience. People might have an image gleaned from spy movies of precision and perfection, and a.s.sume it all runs like clockwork. In reality it doesn't, for the simple reason that we're all human beings, and human beings are liable to f.u.c.k up I knew I did about 40 percent of the time.

James Bond? More like James Bone. Add to that the fact that the people we are working against are also fallible, and it isn't a formula for guaranteed success. The only true measure of human intelligence is the speed and versatility with which people can adapt to new situations. Certainly once you are on the ground, you have to be as flexible as a rubber band, and what helps you be flexible is planning and preparation. With luck, when the inevitable f.u.c.kup did occur, I wouldn't be a rabbit frozen in the headlights. As Napoleon, or somebody like that, said, "If your opponent has only two possible options, you can be sure that he will take the third."

Eventually I came up with a workable plan well, I thought I had. I'd soon find out. I checked my watch just gone 5:32 p.m. That gave me just over eleven hours to get into the house and get her away. But that was merely the physical timing; the factors that mattered even more were light and dark. I couldn't move in daylight; all my movements had to be under cover of darkness.

London wanted her lifted by 5 a.m. I knew that first light was at about five thirty, but it would take a little longer to arrive in the forest. I needed to get hold of her and be away from here by 3 a.m.; that would give me about two hours of darkness to get clear of the area. Last light was at just after seven o'clock, but I wouldn't get full cover of darkness until about an hour later. On the face of it, that effectively gave me seven hours of working time. But I couldn't go in there while they were still awake, so what would I do if they were still up and about at two o'clock in the morning?

By now, I'd dehumanized the people I was up against. To me they were targets, the same as the house. From now on I wouldn't refer to them, or even think of them, as people. I couldn't, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do the job. Ironically, Sarah had once asked me about that. I told her I didn't like to a.n.a.lyze myself too much because I wasn't sure I'd like what I found. I knew I'd done some really terrible things, but I didn't think I was too bad a person. The question that always bugged me more was, Why was I doing this s.h.i.t in the first place? My whole life had been spent sitting in wet holes. Even when I was in the Army I would ask myself the same thing: Why? I couldn't answer fully then, and I couldn't now. Queen and country? Nah. I didn't know anyone who'd even considered that.

Pride? I was proud, not necessarily of what I did, but certainly of the way I did it. Being a soldier, and later a K, was the only thing I was good at.

Even as a kid I was just odd socks and scabs; my mother was always telling me I'd never amount to anything. Maybe she was right, but I liked to think that, in my own little world, I was among the best. It made me feel good about myself, and I got paid for it. The only downside was that I'd have a little bit of explaining to do when I was standing at the Pearly Gates. But who doesn't?

The wind had died down, and the rain wasn't falling quite so hard.

Lights came on in the house, which was natural enough; it was nearly seven o'clock, it would be dark inside. The lights were showing on the first floor, the same as last night. I strained to listen, but couldn't hear anything, not even a radio or TV What I wouldn't have given to know what was going on in there. I hoped they were packing their bags and f.u.c.king off.

You can always improve on a plan, so I kept on visualizing. What if I got to the door just as they were coming out with their bags? What would I do? Where would I go? Would I just barge in there and kill her, or would I try and get her out? Amie and Bruce go in and take on a dozen bad guys at a time, but it doesn't work like that for the rest of us: against a dozen people, you die. A job like this was going to call for speed, aggression and surprise. I'd have to get in there, and get out quickly, but all with minimum risk to me. It wasn't going to be a good day out at all.

Eyes and ears glued to the house, I went through the whole lot again.

And again, wondering if there was anything I'd missed. For sure there would be, but that was what I got paid for: to improvise.

Nothing else mattered now but the task. To achieve the aim is to have a chance of staying alive. This was not the time to think about skipping through meadows or getting in touch with my feminine side. Sarah was now a target. To think any other way could put me in danger, and that wasn't the way I wanted it. Kelly and I still had a b.l.o.o.d.y Tower to visit.

The lights on the first floor went off. It was just before eleven thirty, and another forty gallons of rain had fallen on the OP since I'd last looked at Baby-G thirty minutes before. I packed the camera.

I pushed the bung with my foot and eased myself out of the hide backward on my arms and knees, dragging the bergen and bow with me.

The rain hadn't stopped, but at least the wind that brought it had died. I stayed on my knees and retrieved the two flash cards from my jeans, and with the pliers part of my Leatherman I cracked and bent them into unusable shapes. I put them in two separate pockets of the bergen, along with the 3C.

slowly got to my feet and stretched, stiff as an old man, a wet old man at that, and then listened carefully. Nothing from the house, just the noise of the rain hitting Gore-Tex and leaf. Unfortunately, the next part of the plan entailed me taking my jacket off.

Shivering as the cold air got at my skin, I spread the jacket on the ground, then pulled off my Gore-Tex trousers and put them to one side.

Finally, everything else I was wearing came off, apart from my skivvies, and was quickly placed on top of the jacket.

There was one last thing I remembered to do before carrying on. I retrieved my shirt and, with the knife of the Leatherman, cut off both sleeves at the shoulder. I tucked them into a pocket of my jeans, then started to wrap up the bundle of clothes in the jacket, shivering big time after being coc.o.o.ned in so many layers.

Next I cut four or five lengths of string and used a couple of them to secure the bottoms of the trouser legs by twisting. I shoved the jacket and bundle of clothes down one of the trouser legs, then tied up the waist. Finally I twisted and folded over the trousers and tied the complete bundle.

Once done, it went into my bergen.

I rwasn't concerned about any of the kit that I'd left in the OP as none of it was traceable to me, apart from my plastic-wrapped s.h.i.t, which I'd removed from my bergen. If the extraction of Sarah did turn into a gang f.u.c.k and the hide was discovered by the police or whoever, then by the time anyone got a DNA a.n.a.lysis done I should be well out of the country.

Besides, unless I got caught and the U.K. denied me, the Firm would ensure that any DNA records or follow-up became history.

My pa.s.sport, phone and credit cards had been in my jacket, plastic wrapped, since the beginning. I made the decision to take them with me instead of going into the house sterile. If I got caught now, chances were I'd be dead anyway. And besides, Sarah knew who I was. It wouldn't exactly take a Mastermind contestant to work out what I was there for.

The bow was wedged into the frame of the bergen with the six arrows inserted in the quiver. I took the fifth length of string and tied one end to the bergen, attaching myself to the other by looping it around my wrist a couple of times. At the first hint of trouble, I could let go and part company with it.

Once done, I checked that the bergen straps were done up as tightly as possible, then looked at the house yet again. Still no lights.

I treplaced the bung and smoothed away any sign. Maybe archaeologists in the next millennium would unearth my little time capsule and scratch their heads at the cache of Four Seasons pizza, a gas can full of p.i.s.s and a couple of handfuls of s.h.i.t in plastic wrap.

I moved down to the water's edge, watched, listened, then slowly waded in. The bottom sloped gently to start with, but by the time I'd done four or five paces I was in up to my knees, and freezing. It was just a matter of fighting it and persuading myself that I'd be warm again soon.

I lowered the bergen into the water in front of me, and it floated with the bow just above the water. Even when fully laden, there's always enough air trapped in a bergen to make it buoyant. It had been years since I'd done anything like this. In the jungle, it always used to rain heavily. It would often take us an entire day to cross a main river, and the Regiment had lost more people doing this sort of thing during training than by any other drill.