Andy McNab: Exit wound

Brixmis was set up after the Second World War to foster good working relations between the occupying forces in the British and Soviet sectors. The French and Americans reached their own agreements with the Russians. For some reason the Brits were allowed as many liaison staff in the Soviet zone as the other two missions combined. Maybe they liked the PG Tips.

Red Ken had served twenty-two years in Para Reg and the SAS, and his face told the whole story – although his roll-up habit must have contributed something to those deep crevasses. He’d spent the last three years driving about in his matt-green Opel, taking pictures of tanks and helping defectors across the wire, but was getting out of the Regiment after this tour. He claimed he had no plans beyond sitting full-time on the terraces at Barnsley FC, but I knew he was talking bollocks.

Tenny was also from D Squadron. He was taking over from Red Ken, but for how long, nobody knew: when the Wall crumbled, so would Brixmis. He was about thirty, very smart and hard. You’d have to be, growing up with a hairdo that looked like a rusty Brillo pad. ‘Tennyson’ wasn’t a name you normally heard shouted across an inner-city playground, but his drop-dead gorgeous fiancee seemed to like it, and I guess that was all that mattered.

Tenny had always been a star. After university and a spell in the OTC, he decided he wanted to hang out with squaddie lowlife rather than do what he should have done – become a doctor or lawyer or something that lined his pocket. Tenny had been going places. He had golden balls. We all knew he was destined for better things. For me, being in the Regiment was the best I was ever going to get. For him, it was just another stepping-stone to global domination.

‘“Jol-ly boat-ing weather, /And a hay har-vest breeze, /Blade on the fea-ther, /Shade-”’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Dex was doing Red Ken’s head in.

Dex threw the aircraft into a tight right-hander. I had to throw out an arm to stop myself sliding across the cabin.

‘Now, now, Red – manners. You guys should like it. The music was written by a Rifle Brigade chap at the North-West Frontier. I think his name was-’

Red Ken had had enough. ‘Shut the fuck up, crap hat!’ To Para Reg, that meant anyone who didn’t wear a red beret.

These two had always been like a couple of fishwives. They bickered 24/7, but couldn’t do without each other to bicker with.

Dex’s tone suddenly changed. ‘Border crossed.’

Down below it looked like someone had taken an axe to the Christmas-tree cable. Even the navigation lights had been doused.

‘Over the sterile zone.’

A Bronx growl filled our headphones. ‘I can see that. Just tell me when we’re going to goddam land.’

Tenny kept his voice low and controlled before Red Ken had a chance to tell our American friend where he could shove the Special Relationship. ‘It’s OK, Spag. We’ll get you there, don’t worry. We can’t do anything right now apart from lie here and let Dex get on with it.’

I’d met Conrad Spicciati three days earlier and known straight away I didn’t like him. It wasn’t just because he was small and so overweight he looked like Humpty Dumpty – he didn’t know how to behave with us. For a low-grade CIA agent he had a Pentagon-sized swagger. We had to take the piss. Dex started calling him Spaghetti. Ten seconds later we’d shortened it to Spag.

It got him so worked up his porn-star moustache was in a permanent twitch. He kept stroking it with his thumb and forefinger, possibly to calm it down. I wondered if he’d grown it especially for the job. But I didn’t give it much thought. As far as I was concerned, we’d get this shit done and never see him again.

He sat with his arms locked around a black nylon sports bag in the dull red glow of the aircraft interior, gripping it like he thought we were going to mug him. I probably would have done if I’d thought I could have got away with it. The bag contained Vladislav’s twenty thousand US dollars. It didn’t sound like a lot for a bit of top-secret kit, but it would have been a life-changing sum to me.

Tenny needn’t have worried. Dex ignored him. ‘“Bang, bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…”’

Red Ken’s and Tenny’s shoulders heaved in unison.

Spag bellowed into his headset that nobody sang on his goddam watch.

Biggles segued straight into ‘Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines’.

Odd smudges of very East German light appeared – dull and yellow, not the fairground stuff their Western mates went for a few thousand metres away. We called them nein-watt bulbs.

Red Ken cut in: ‘OK, that’s it, enough. Let’s switch on.’

The Dornier dropped the final couple of hundred feet. My head bounced off the steel as we hit the ground and bumped along the field.

When I sat up I could see a line of small fires through the windows. Benghazi burners – normally small pots of petrol and sand, but probably mud here. Everywhere east of the Wall was ankle-deep in the stuff. The burners would have been laid out in an L, Second-World-War SOE-style. The base of the L was the threshold; Dex needed to land as close to it as he could to ensure he had enough grass to rattle to a stop. The long stroke gave him wind direction.

Spag was already up on his knees, headphones cast aside as if he had to jump and run under fire. He struggled to keep his balance at the same time as he hugged the bag to his chest.

Red Ken waved him down. ‘The crap-hat has been watching too many war films.’

Tenny convulsed again with laughter.

Spag didn’t like it. He stayed on his knees, ready to leap out and take on all-comers.

Red Ken wasn’t finished. ‘Who does he think he is? He’s a pencil-neck CIA desk jockey, not the fucking Terminator…’

Tenny rested a hand on Red Ken’s shoulder. ‘Give him a break. This is his first time. And he’s American.’

After Spag’s thirty-odd years as a desk jockey, he wouldn’t be auditioning for the job of Arnie’s stunt double any time soon. He looked more like the new cartoon character I’d been watching on the American forces’ network back in Berlin, Homer Simpson.

The Dornier slowed. Dex taxied to the threshold, swung the nose round so he was facing into the wind again, and closed down the props. ‘Just like the old days, chaps – the four of us together in the middle of nowhere. At least we don’t have to start spouting Pashto.’

Spag headed straight for the exit and scrabbled to get out.

Red Ken caught his arm. ‘No rush, mate. If we’ve got a drama waiting for us out there, we’ll find out soon enough. We need to take everything slow and calm.’ He swung the door open.

My nostrils were hammered by the stench of shit.

Tenny saw my face screw up in the dull red light. ‘Human fertilizer. Nothing gets wasted round here.’

Red Ken set off towards a thin torch beam that suddenly pierced the darkness.

Vladislav’s contact appeared out of the gloom. His fresh boot-marks met Red Ken’s in the frosty dew. They’d done a lot of business during his tour, but this was their biggest deal yet. They hugged like old mates and jabbered away to each other in German while Tenny checked our comms with Dex.

I didn’t know the contact’s name and didn’t need to. Tenny and Red Ken were here to look after Spag, and my job was to look after them. I tightened my grip on the two-foot steel Maglite. There were rules to this game, and one of them was that Brixmis went unarmed. If you were caught with a gun, you got shot, simple as that.

Apart from my torch, the only kit we had with us was the radio in Tenny’s day-sack and whatever Red Ken had in his. A couple of sharp rectangular shapes jutted against the thin nylon. I didn’t know what they were and I didn’t ask. If I’d needed to know he would have told me.