Andy McNab - Recoil

Sam opened up and we found ourselves in a hallway the size of a departure lounge. There was excited barking, the scampering of paws on stone and two rat-like dogs hurled themselves at him. He did what dog lovers do, fussing about and getting slobber all over his clothes and hands.

He talked to them like they were his kids. He even introduced them. 'This is Vegas, and this is Mimi.' If he wanted me to say hello, he had another think coming. Apart from anything else, I was too busy being impressed by the decor and cheering myself up by thinking how jealous Stefan would have been.

I shook my head in disbelief. 'Just as well you didn't become a vicar. Their company houses aren't a patch on this.'

'I work as a peacemaker, Nick.' He motioned towards Mimi and Vegas. 'Dog collars are for dogs.'

'You on the circuit?'

We walked along the hall and into the kitchen. He opened a huge, stainless-steel, double-doored fridge. 'No, no, none of that rubbish. That's Crazy Dave's end of the market. What we do is a wee bit more sophisticated.'

He was waiting for me to fold. Fuck it, I'd held out for a while and, besides, it got us away from Zaire. 'Who's "we"? I know them?'

He was happy now. 'There are four others on the team. You know one of them for sure, and might remember another.' He passed me a cold can of Castle. 'Come on, then, tell all. I want to know what you've been getting up to.'

That was fine by me: it put more distance between us and the shit can. 'Bit of this, bit of that. I worked for the Firm for a while, then the Yanks.' I took a mouthful of lager.

'You did the Iraq gigs?'

'Madness not to. What about you? Where do you keep the peace most days?'

'Security for a mine in DRC. We fly to the Rwanda border and conduct operations into DRC from the base camp.' He lost the sparkle in his eyes for a moment, and I had the strange impression that his red skin had gone a shade lighter. 'It's a nightmare up there, Nick. The miners need protecting, the communities need protecting.' He touched my arm. This stuff was coming from the heart. 'But tell me about the girl.'

I toyed with my beer can as I wondered whether to give him the truth. If he was fucking me about, I still needed to make sure I got on that flight. The next step would be begging. Maybe that was what he wanted from me. 'This isn't just a job, Sam. She's important to me. I have to get her out of Nuka.'

He shook his head slowly. 'Not a healthy place, Nick. Everyone's getting slaughtered left, right and centre. But I'll take you in.'

'I don't know what I'd do without her.' Fuck. Where did that come from? So much for keeping things under wraps…

Sam eyed me with real concern. Eventually he resorted to the shoulder-clapping routine and changed the subject. 'Let's worry about that tomorrow. I'll show you round.'

He ushered me through a door into his own private cinema. A giant plasma screen filled the far wall. A dozen La-Z-Boy armchairs faced it, and there was a bar tucked into the corner.

'I've got my own church now. We educate, medicate, protect – and keep the Lord high on their agendas.'

I didn't run for the hills, these days, when God came up in conversation. I'd worked out long ago that the afterlife was just a comfort blanket for people who didn't know what the fuck was going on and needed to believe there was some sort of reasoning behind it all, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim or Seventh Day Jehovah's Buddhist. Me? I was glad I was too stupid to worry about the meaning of life. I just wanted to keep mine going as long as I could.

I glanced at the row of photos on the wall behind the bar. 'This the church?'

All I could see was a jumble of mud huts with palm-leaf roofs and a few crosses hanging over the doorways. In the foreground, a bunch of kids were grappling with a goat, up to their knees in mud.

'Not exactly. That's Nuka, in fact, an orphanage I also run.'

'I still don't quite understand how God fits in with your private enterprise. God and gun?' I indicated the opulence around us. 'Where's the join?'

'It's wrong to think of it like that. The two are totally compatible. What good could I do without the cash? This house means nothing. It's not mine, nor will it ever be. It comes with a job that I take very seriously because it gets me to the people who need my help and provides the money to run the church, to run Nuka…' He saw the expression on my face and held up his hand. 'Yes, it's near the mine. We'll get to her, don't you worry.'

We went out on to a terrace overlooking the sea. The sun had just about sunk into it now. A woman was laying a table for two. Crystal glasses, gleaming candelabra, big linen napkins.

Sam looked pleased. 'I thought we'd get the company silver out and celebrate with a few courses of mealie-meal and Milo. Then maybe a movie. Very romantic, eh?'

Sunday, 11 June 05:58 hours We'd left the house nearly an hour ago and I was feeling good, even if my cell hadn't made a squeak all night. At least I was getting closer to where I needed to be. We'd driven through the golf course, past security and out on to the metalled road in pitch darkness. We'd turned off after twenty minutes, and for the last ten Sam's shiny new company BMW X5 had been bouncing along a dirt track. A sliver of light was peeping over the horizon.

Behind the blacked-out windows, we listened to an early-morning talk-show. The only other sound was the gentle hum of the air-conditioning. The station said there was a festival and wine-tasting up in Stellenbosch this afternoon, but I knew at least three people who wouldn't be going. By the time the organizers were pulling the first cork, Sam, Lex and I should be on the Rwanda-DRC border and less than fifty K from Nuka.

I breathed in the aroma of brand new leather. Sam and I had spent the evening being served roast beef and fine wines. He seemed to have become a bit of a connoisseur. I couldn't believe the transformation – but not everything about him had changed. He still thought God had created the earth, and that he needed to save everyone's souls. Even the DVD we watched after dinner was a fund-raiser he'd put together.

I believed him when he said that the house, even the BMW, meant nothing to him. We'd spent all night talking about how he'd stayed in Africa after the 1985 job and worked for different aid organizations. Not once did he ask me about Zaire; there were no more leading questions.

I suddenly realized I had to talk to him. 'Sam?'

'What?' He adjusted the air.

'The thing that happened on the heli, the boy… I need to talk about it.'

'I know.' He kept looking straight ahead.

'I couldn't hold him. I need you to know that. The little fucker was too slippery.'

'I know.'

'I couldn't help Annabel. That fucking arsehole Standish, you see what he did?'

Sam nodded. We hadn't talked about him all night. It was just as well. I'd still be honking and banging the table.

'After the boy fell it was too late – I couldn't get off the heli in time.'

'I know that too.'

'So why do I feel so guilty?' I paused. 'Do you know that too?'

'Because you can't get the sight of those kids' corpses out your head. I do know that, because I can't either. That's why my life has been here ever since. I want to make up for killing those children. I want to make sure the ones who are still alive don't have to suffer like the ones we killed. But you don't have to feel guilty, Nick. We didn't know. This is just my particular way of dealing with it.'

'Thanks.'

'No thanks needed, son. Do you want to know what happened to the others?'

'No,' I lied. I'd always wanted to know about the boy.

'Really?'

'I know Annabel didn't make it. Not sure I'm ready to hear the rest.'

We rounded a bend in the dirt track. 'OK. Just let me know when you are.' Sam tapped the wheel. 'In the meantime, this is us.'