Andy McNab - Exit wound

Dex rolled the wagon slowly over the wasteground towards the target. A couple of hundred metres away from it, he started easing up the handbrake instead of using the foot pedal. We didn’t want red taillights flashing on derelict ground.

We came to a halt and Red Ken and I jumped out. The lights of the city glowed all round our island of darkness. The ski-slope tower blinked about a K away so the Dexes of this world didn’t fly into it. About five hundred metres behind us, hundreds of vehicles flowed along the well-lit main.

We moved forward on foot.

The target wall was maybe a hundred and fifty ahead.

The gates facing the entrance to the building were immediately in front of us. From here on in, that side of the rectangle was White. The left-hand side was Green, the right was Red and the rear section Black. Colour coding prevented confusion: your rear could be someone else’s front.

We eased off to the left. Sweat trickled down my neck as we rounded the first corner of White and Green. We did a complete 360 of the compound wall, gradually spiralling in until we came right up against it where Red met White.

There was a constant hum of traffic. Helicopters buzzed from one high-rise to another in the background. We listened for movement inside the compound. We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, just listening and tuning in. The ambient light wasn’t strong enough to cast a shadow onto the wall, but now my night vision was kicking in I could see the dust and rubble below our feet. My fingers had pruned inside the surgical gloves, floating in pools of sweat.

Red Ken gave me a tap on the shoulder to check if I’d heard anything.

I shook my head.

We followed the wall on White until we reached the entrance.

The gate had once had a coat of paint, but I couldn’t tell what colour it had been. The desert wind had sandblasted some patches bare. Wind from the sea had made it rust and peel.

The three big padlocks Red Ken had spotted on their last recce were still in place: massive square things, just the body exposed so you couldn’t attack the shanks with a cutter.

Red Ken went down on his knees, scanning the ground for tread marks. The wind would have obliterated anything more than a few days old, so anything visible could be taken as recent. It was one more combat indicator, something that showed the enemy was close – because tonight there were no friendly forces.

A foot-high ridge of sand had built up along the bottom of the gate. If somebody had made entry recently it would have been disturbed. We were going to leave it just as it was.

Red Ken leant his back against the wall, knees bent. He cupped his hands on his lap. I put my right foot into his gloves, steadied myself with my hands on his shoulders, then reached up and grabbed the top of the wall. He stood and guided my feet to his shoulders.

The yard was pitch black. No vehicle lights, no lights from the windows either side of the shutters.

I waited twenty seconds before looking again, so my unconscious had time for everything around it to sink in. I came back down. ‘OK. We’re on.’

Red Ken moved a little further along the wall towards White and Red to be the marker for the Tata and I moved towards Dex to guide him in. He’d be driving without lights and using only the handbrake and gears.

I pulled my torch up onto my forehead. Its three LEDs shone white or red, as a stable beam or flashes for emergencies. Stable and red would do us fine, but not just yet. I walked until the Tata was almost on top of me and the cab blocked out the city lights behind it. I gripped the sill of the open window to murmur in Dex’s ear, ‘You can see the wall?’

‘Yep.’

‘OK, go half right then turn in. Red’s your marker.’

Dex kept it at gentle revs as he rolled forward. There was no rush about this bit. The noise wasn’t important; not hitting the brakes was. He pulled up the handbrake when he got to his mark and left the engine running.

I scrambled on top of the cab and jumped onto the wall. I dropped into a stretch of finely powdered sand that had had no way of escaping the compound. One hand on my pistol to keep it in my waistband, I ran to Black. All clear.

By the time I got back, Red Ken was checking the shutter. The glow from his head-torch bathed its sides and then its base. He scooped away years of encrusted sand. ‘I got fuck-all to get hold of, son. It’s got to be electric.’

Whoever had closed this down had done so from the inside and then come out via the door in the shutters. Three Chubbs secured that. We’d be here all night trying to defeat them. ‘We’ll have to pull out the frame.’

Silhouetted against the city lights, Dex stood astride the cab roof with the crane’s control box in his hand. The electric winch whined and the steel cable snaked down our side of the wall. Red Ken grabbed it and started walking towards the right-hand window.

I helped Red Ken loop the heavy steel hook round the eight bars and back onto the cable. He turned to Dex. ‘All right, mate, let’s do it. Nice and slow.’

The winch hauled in the cable until it was taut. Red Ken and I slipped round the corner of White and Red to get out of the way. If the cable snapped under tension, the whiplash would tear up anyone in its path, like shrapnel from a mortar round. Dex lay flat on the cab for the same reason. We heard the strain in the steel strands, and then a loud crack and rumble as the whole section of wall came away. It hit the ground with a thump and sent up a cloud of dust.

There wasn’t time to celebrate.

Red Ken undid the hook. I turned on my head-torch to constant red and climbed through the hole. I couldn’t see a thing. The red light bounced straight back off the dustcloud, like headlights in fog. The air was hot and musty. It felt like we were breaking into a pyramid. Coughing and spluttering, I began to make out plasterboard walls. I was in an office. I groped for the door. My nose and mouth had filled with grit. I gobbed it onto my shirt. I needed to contain my DNA.

I carried on through the door. My coughs suddenly echoed. I was in the warehouse proper. I turned towards where I thought the shutters should be and my torch beam hit their metal slats. The operating mechanism was mounted on the side wall. I tried pressing the ‘open’ button just in case. Then I grabbed the chain as high as I could and pulled. It didn’t budge. Years of disuse had seized it up.

I jumped up, with arms extended, and hung on, then kicked out from the wall like a kid in an adventure playground to apply some weight and traction from another angle. It gave an inch. I went through the same routine again, jumping up and kicking out, until it gradually relented. I sank to my knees as the slats began to concertina. My sweat-soaked face was coated with sand.

One final wrench and the shutter ascended. I could see Red Ken’s boots in the glow of his head-torch. The hook and webbing straps lay beside them. As soon as the gap was big enough, he rolled under and helped me pull. The shutter came to a complete stop as the inset door hit the top of the roll.

Dex was still on the wagon, silhouetted against the starlit sky.

The dust had almost settled. Our torch beams criss-crossed the interior of the building like lasers. The crates lay in the middle of the warehouse. Six feet by four and two feet high, they each stood on an individual pallet. We moved forward. I felt my heart beating faster. I didn’t want these two silly fuckers to be here – and I didn’t want to be here either.

Red Ken dropped his day-sack on the nearest crate and pulled out a mini-crowbar. We needed to be sure this wasn’t just a bulk shipment from the nearest burqa factory.