Cross Fire - By Andy McNab Page 0,132

news with a round in each elbow; I didn't want him able to rip it off with his hands. He screamed and jerked left and right, but all that happened was that the blood leaked faster from his neck wound.

I splashed water over the curtain until it hugged the contours of his face. He choked and bucked and tried to kick his trapped legs free. I knew exactly how he felt. I carried on going for thirty seconds before I pulled the cotton aside.

We were both soaking wet. He gulped and wheezed and begged me to stop.

The horizon flashed blue from the direction of the town.

I threw the soaking curtain back over his face and redirected the hose. This time it wasn't coming off. He was never going to have the chance to get at me, or Dom, or Dom's family, ever again.

The gag reflex contorted him. He was drowning, and as his life ebbed from him I felt nothing but relief. No more threats, no more Sundance and Trainers turning up and filling me with dread because I knew there'd be a shit job I had to do.

His body went into spasm, and eventually went limp. I kept the hosepipe there for a while longer, then reached down and felt for a pulse on the side of his neck. There was nothing.

I pulled away the curtain. His face was frozen in a silent scream. I watched it for movement. He'd stopped breathing. His mouth was full of water. More dribbled from his nose.

Headlights bounced through the night sky just the other side of the rise.

I skirted the back of the Mondeo and jumped over the fence. I started to run. Not having soldiers on the border any more wasn't just an advantage to drug-runners.

As I melted into the darkness, brilliant blue flashes lit up the yard.

I carried on running.

Epilogue

I waited at the bottom of the wall as the two flashing blue lights rushed past and turned left, away from me.

The wall wasn't as high as I remembered it. I could probably have managed without the aluminium ladder.

I looked up. There was no security lighting, but the moon was out. There was no sign of razor wire glinting along the top.

I put the ladder against the wall and started to climb. It wasn't long before I was sitting on the coping. I stopped, looked and listened. It was just after two in the morning, and there was just the occasional car or truck, but it would take only one pair of eyes to spot me. There might even be security inside. I didn't know; there hadn't been time to do a proper recce.

I leant down and stretched out my hand. A small one gripped mine. She was light, and it didn't take much effort to lift her up beside me. 'Wait there a minute. Just sit quietly.'

The next one up didn't need help. It wasn't long before we were all sitting in a row. I leant down, grabbed the top of the ladder and hauled it up, then swivelled on my arse and lowered it the other side.

We came down in reverse order.

Moonlight glimmered on a strip of grass, and then we were on concrete. It was only a few steps more to the water's edge.

'Nick, can you hold this a sec? I just want to say something to Ruby.'

Tallulah smiled and handed me the container. She knelt down and gave her stepdaughter a hug. The big shock of hair framed a slightly happier face than she'd worn last time I saw her.

I'd made contact with Dom two days later. They'd gone straight to Siobhan in Donegal and had the great love-fest reunion.

The media coverage was as it should be. The rounds recovered from the bodies confirmed that it was another drugs-related incident, ex-UDA versus ex-PIRA. Forensics revealed that the AKs that had fired them had some previous. They had killed British soldiers in the eighties.

The dead men were discussed at length, but there wasn't a single mention of the Yes Man. There never would be. Every man and his dog, in both governments, would take his story to their graves.

Siobhan was with Finbar in Arizona now, tinkling bells and chanting. Some kind of trendy New Age rehab woo-woo, Dom said.

He was back in Afghanistan with Kate, his new right-hand girl. Basma had arranged a meet between Dom and the Taliban dealer, who was very pissed off that his British contacts had gone to ground and backed away from their agreement. It would have been worth getting satellite TV just to watch Dom's programme go out. I said I'd pop in and see the three of them in Dublin when it aired, but I knew I wouldn't. I was going to do this one last little thing, and then I'd move on.

'Ruby, remember how we looked at the films of you and Daddy playing at this pool?'

I watched their moonlit reflections on the surface of the water.

'He's mostly in the garden now, so he'll always be with us, in all the places he loved most. But remember how he loved to swim here?'

Too right. In my mind's eye I could see the big stupid grin across Pete's face.

'Nick?'

'Here you are.'

I handed Ruby the urn, and watched as she unscrewed the lid. She had to turn it almost upside down before the tiny handful of ash fell out and spread across the water.

Tallulah put a hand on my arm. 'Nick, thank you. For everything . . .'

One of Dom's first jobs had been to bang four hundred thousand dollars into an account in Kabul, the same amount as I'd invested in Ruby's trust fund. Well, the Yes Man had offered. It had cost five per cent to deposit and move, a bit more than a drug-dealer would pay, but worth every penny.

Basma was going to take a small percentage for her refuge, and administer the rest for Magreb's widow. She'd promised to make sure the four boys received the education the silly fucker had been so passionate about. They'd be doctors one day, maybe.

Everyone's future seemed secure. Except mine. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I'd have to get my skates on. My invoice to Moira for helping Dom with his Kabul research was still in dispute, and I was skint.

That $50 million bounty on bin Laden's head was beginning to look awfully fucking tempting.

THE END

ANDY

McNAB

is back...

The original, the best...

At last, the long-awaited sequel

to the international bestsellers,

BRAVO TWO ZERO and

IMMEDIATE ACTION

SEVEN

TROOP

They were like a band of brothers...

In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as

SEVEN TROOP

This is Andy McNab's gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men – from the day, freshly-badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life.

From the pen of the man who invented the modern military memoir comes another storming battering ram of thrill-packed, unforgettable drama. Never before revealed operations and heartbreaking human stories combine to create a new classic of the genre and a book that takes us back to where it all began...

Coming in September 2008

from Bantam Press