Andy McNab - Exit wound

I finally managed to grip myself. Even if I did know why he’d got zapped, it didn’t change anything. I still had no control over what Altun and Brin and the Taliban did or didn’t know. The most important thing was that they didn’t have us. I was still moving on. I still had a job to do. I still had my mission.

After ten minutes we were a good tactical bound away from the flat. I tapped her leg and pointed down a side-street. Two or three clapped-out cars parked in front of a line of locked-up Spar-type shops were intermittently floodlit by a flashing neon bar sign. She pulled in and stopped and I passed her the magazine.

She took off the black full-face helmet and shook her head to unstick her hair from her skin. She was still in a bad way, but comfort wasn’t what either of us needed right now. We needed to crack on.

I hoisted myself out of the sidecar and we examined the magazine cover together. Semyon was on the far right, in the back row. I pointed at the egg-shaped guy in the centre of the group.

Her face turned to stone. ‘That’s Brin.’

‘First name Vladislav? Is he Vladislav Brin?’

The wind was getting up. She wrapped the waxed jacket more tightly around her. It must have been Grisha’s: it was in far better condition than mine.

‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘He is the CEO of M3C.’ She cupped her hands to light a cigarette, took a deep drag and, without taking it out of her mouth, pulled her wheelie-case from between my legs. She undid it and retrieved a pashmina, which she wrapped round her neck. I’d been cold in the sidecar; she must have been freezing.

She stared at the magazine cover, transfixed. I couldn’t tell whose face she was concentrating on. The one she hated or the one she loved.

‘I know Brin.’ I zipped the case up and shoved it back into the footwell. ‘The last time I saw him was in ’eighty-eight. He was selling technology to the US in East Germany.’

She jerked her head round. ‘ What? ’ Her eyes blazed.

There was no need to bullshit her any longer. We had less than a day to do what we needed to do. I told her everything I’d been keeping from her. I told her who I was. I told her about how Dex, Red Ken and I had lifted the gold. I told her what had happened when we were loading it. I told her about Tenny, Altun and Spag. I told her why I’d been in Iran, working for Julian, and about getting binned from the job as soon as I knew that Spag was involved, and that he was still CIA. I told her who had killed Semyon. And finally I told her I was there for one reason and one reason only – to avenge my mates’ deaths.

She stared at me, taking it all in as I continued.

‘I still don’t understand where the four of us fitted in. I know Altun is the middleman between Brin and the Taliban. I know the Taliban can pay for the missiles with heroin or heroin money – it doesn’t really matter which. I can’t understand how Spag and the gold are involved. Or what cements him to Altun and Brin.’

‘Nick?’ She thought for a while. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’

That was good enough for me. ‘You’re right. The story, the pictures, so what? They won’t bring Grisha or Semyon back. These people -’ I pointed at the magazine ‘- these people will survive anything you do and then they’ll kill you for it. It’s just the way of the world. So fuck ’em. I’m going to kill them. I don’t care that the CIA are involved and I don’t care about the gold, the heroin or any of that shit. I’m here for Red Ken, Dex and Tenny. They were all I had left. And now I’m here for Semyon and Grisha too. I’m here for revenge. What about you? You want some?’

Her whole demeanour had changed. ‘Yes – no more story. I want revenge.’

‘Good – you get me to the proving ground and I’ll do the rest.’

She took the cigarette from her mouth, flicked away the ash, and considered the burning tip. ‘How?’

‘I don’t know yet. We’ll share the riding – get us both out of the city and I’ll work something out.’

Outskirts of Vologda

0648 hrs

The night ride along the endless ribbon of pitted tarmac had been dank and miserable, and so was the truckers’ stop we’d pulled into. A strip of ancient wooden shacks was attached to each side of a filling station. Poor-quality light spilled from their windows and dribbled away into the forest. Power lines drooped between their poles and branched off over the parking area. If it hadn’t been for the Cyrillic signs, I could almost have been in the American Midwest.

I sat on Cuckoo, wet, cold and hungry – all the things I hated – waiting for Anna to come back.

A convoy of military trucks made their way down the other side of the road. Each set of headlights caught the rooster tail of spray thrown up by the one in front. As they drew closer, they slowed and stopped. I heard boots on tarmac before I saw soldiers run into the shops.

I made myself look busy, double-checking all our gear was well strapped down. The first filling station we’d come to must have thought they’d won the state lottery. Besides fuel cans, a small bubble compass and a roll of Sellotape, we’d bought them out of food, water and maps, and even their stock of towing kits.

The maps had been OK for getting us here, but the training area was just shown as a massive stretch of grey. No roads, buildings or even water-courses were marked, and there was no sign in the middle of it saying ‘Proving Ground’. But I had a plan.

I looked up. The convoy would have come from the naval air base Anna said was located about forty K further up the road. That was the direction we were heading when we left here.

The thunder of turboprops rumbled somewhere above the low cloud. Anna had said the base was where long-range aircraft took off to patrol the Atlantic. I knew the ones she was talking about – Antonovs with wingspans as big as B-52s, but props instead of jets. The papers had reported that the Russian crews held up boards with their email addresses on so the Brit interceptors could drop them a line and join their Facebook page.

Anna came out of the nearest shack carrying two paper bags and a couple of large steaming cups. She wasn’t short of admirers, even here. Five or six soldier boys followed close behind. They whistled appreciatively, zipped up their jackets and headed reluctantly for their wagon.

The bag she passed me contained a small loaf of brown bread and a jar of strawberry jam. I broke the loaf in half and scooped jam into it with two fingers. ‘Did you find out where we can get it?’

‘About ten kilometres further up the road.’

I wolfed down the bread and jam between gulps of strong, sweet black tea, then climbed back onto the saddle. Getting aboard Cuckoo was just like straddling a regular bike, except you had to manoeuvre your right leg just ahead of the metal bars connecting it to the sidecar and just behind the air intake for the right cylinder. I liked to be able to move my leg around, and it felt hemmed in by the hardware.

Another invisible aircraft laboured above us as I kick-started the Ural. I hoped the cloud cover hung in there. We needed all the help we could get.

0710 hrs

We soon found ourselves paralleling a four-metre-high chain-link fence. The fir trees the far side of it seemed to advance and recede as we continued, and in a few places crossed the wire in an attempt to overwhelm us.

It doesn’t matter what flag you’re flying or what uniform you’re wearing, every army in the world has certain things in common. The chain-link fence is one of them. The high command can’t seem to get enough of them. They don’t stop anyone getting in, but they’re great for hanging warning signs on. Red ones emblazoned with a skull and crossbones were pinned to it every twenty-five metres or so. I couldn’t read the Russian writing beneath, but the message was clear.