Andy McNab - War torn

'Yeah. I'm hoping we've just got our wires crossed. Or she was just having a bad day last time we spoke.'

'You'll probably find that everything's all right,' said Dave. 'It's easy to read too much into a short conversation when you're this far apart.'

'But after six months, she'll have changed. And so will I. So will Luke.'

'Yeah. Nothing's ever exactly the same. You have to work hard to find your place in the family again.'

'It'll be different for you at home.'

Involuntarily, Dave smiled.

'Two kids. It's going to take a bit of getting used to.'

The silence returned. The half-hearted breeze gave up and stopped completely. Nothing moved at all in the intense heat. Even Jamie, at Dave's side, was as still as a reptile. Was there life somewhere in that vast expanse of sand? Small mammals, bugs? Maybe they burrowed down deep where the earth was cooler and went to sleep until last light.

It would be easy to fall asleep on stag in this heat and have the piss taken out of you for ever. Except that suddenly Dave felt wide awake. His back straightened. His senses strained.

Jamie looked at him.

'What's up?'

'There's something happening.'

Jamie looked around at the camp with its hardware and soft tents. The flat desert plain was so still that even the dust lay pinned to the ground by the sun. The Early Rocks rose like statues. And on the other side of the camp were the hills and then the purple shadows of the mountains.

'Can't see anything.'

'Over there.'

Dave's back was stiff now and his face alert.

'But it's so quiet and-'

'It's the wrong sort of quiet.'

Jamie put his head on one side and Dave knew he was considering whether it was possible that his trusted sergeant had finally cracked.

'Don't look at me like that. Look at the hills. Look across the camp to Three Boulders and then right and down some. Now stare.'

There was a long pause.

'I'm staring. And I'm not seeing anything.'

'Keep looking at the shadows. They seem still but they're not. They're moving. Very, very slowly.'

Jamie watched.

Dave said: 'I only saw it when my eyes started to glaze over a bit.'

'What are your eyes, fucking infra-red?' There was admiration in Jamie's voice and Dave knew that he could see it too now.

'Doesn't look right, does it?' Dave said.

'It's like watching a ship going over the horizon. You think it's still, then it disappears and you realize it was going all the time.'

Neither man moved. Their eyes were fixed across the camp to the side of the hill.

'I reckon Angry McCall might have been right,' Dave said. 'I reckon there's someone-'

But he was silenced by an extraordinary sight. A small, hunched figure in shirt sleeves and body armour but without a helmet was walking outside the perimeter wire towards the hillside.

AGNIESZKA AND DARREL DROVE UP FROM THE COAST, ACROSS moorland and forest, through the centre of the city and finally towards the rolling countryside where the camp was situated. And all the time, Agnieszka was asking herself what she wanted to happen next.

When the time came to turn into the supermarket where they had left her car, Darrel did not turn. He did not look at Agnieszka or ask her if she wanted to change her mind, he just drove on past the supermarket towards her house.

Luke was quiet. Agnieszka did not speak. She was frightened now. What was she doing? Did she still love Jamie? You didn't just switch off love. Thinking of him caused a strange, twisting feeling like a corkscrew buried inside her chest. She loved him but his absence was immense. Gradually he was becoming a ghost, a vapour, a shadow, as though one day he would disappear altogether.

She glanced at Darrel. His face and body were more than the light and shadow of memory. But if he went home tonight then he would just be a memory too.

Her heart beat faster as they entered the camp. She felt sick.

As they neared the house she saw, at the end of the street, a dark-skinned woman surrounded by small children. Adi Kasanita. Trailing home from the rec with her kids before bedtime on a summery evening. Adi's walk was slow and relaxed. She swung her hips as she pushed the buggy with one hand and held a toddler with the other. The older children were playing some sort of game at her side, surging around her like water. Adi was talking to them and laughing. She looked content with her uncomplicated life.

Agnieszka watched her and knew that Adi had got it right. Yes, Adi, relaxed and smiling with her kids on a warm evening, was the way it was supposed to be. The day by the sea, her car hidden at the supermarket, their furtive kisses on the beach, it hadn't really been wonderful. It had been complex and furtive.

She stole another quick glance at Darrel. For a moment she hated him. He made her feel so good that she had chosen not to notice that he was a huge, threatening storm gathering over peaceful waters. But she knew it really. That was why her heart thudded and her head spun with nausea.

'Darrel. Don't come in. You can't come in.'

He looked across at her in surprise.

'What?'

'I very sorry. I want that you drive back to supermarket for my car.'

'Ags, you're scared. You don't have to be scared.'

'Don't come to house, Darrel, it very dangerous for me.'

'Listen-'

'No, please! Please don't come home now.'

He sighed and passed her house without even slowing. At the end of the street they turned.

'What changed your mind?'

'I very sorry, Darrel.'

'Was it that woman with the kids you were looking at? Is she a friend of yours?'

'Yes.'

'I thought you said you don't have any friends here.'

Agnieszka closed her eyes. It was true that Adi wasn't really a friend. She was one of a group of women who had invited Agnieszka into their circle often enough, and Agnieszka had chosen to remain outside their orbit. She had thought it was boring, stifling and small-minded. Now it looked warm and attractive. It looked safe. But if Darrel came home with her she would be stepping far, far from its protection.

He said: 'If you're worried what your friends think, I could come back later, maybe. When it's night.'

'No.'

'I'll make sure no one sees me.'

She shook her head vigorously.

'No, Darrel. Please. It wrong to do this.'

She waited for his reaction. For a minute his face darkened and he looked angry. Then she saw him wrench a smile from somewhere.

'OK, Ags. We've had a good day. We won't ruin it now. We'll stay friends,' he said.

'Yes,' she said. 'We are friends, just friends, Darrel.'

At the sound of her own sureness, her nausea evaporated and she felt the relief, all through her body to her nerve endings, of a narrow escape.

'FUCKING HELL!' SAID DAVE.

He and Jamie stared in silence for a moment at the sight of Martyn Robertson crossing the desert, alone, unarmed and unguarded. His walk was shambling in the heat. He leaned slightly to the left as if he'd grown that way over the years. He was crossing the flat area around the base and now reached a spot where the hills began. That spot was directly to the right and down from Three Boulders.

Dave's body was already swelling and his face expanding as he filled himself with breath to yell.

'Staaaand tooooo!'

Before his words could bounce back at him from the hillside he was leaping down from the sangar.

'Keep shouting,' he told Jamie. Stand to, stand to, stand to, whispered the desert to the camp and the hills to the desert.

Heads started to appear under ponchos. Jamie could see Dave running towards the sentries at the main entrance. He looked up into the hills. Martyn was still visible, scrambling over the layers of pink rock now, towards the suspect shadows. He had heard the shout, glanced over his shoulder and evidently chosen to ignore it. He continued climbing. Jamie waited to wave at him, but Martyn did not turn again.