Andy McNab: Recoil

'He also said, "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." That's him distinguishing the guilty from the innocent, Nick, and telling us whose side we should be on.'

This didn't sound good. He was confusing himself with Billy Graham. Any minute now he'd be thumping the lectern.

'People like the high commissioner's lot down there -' he waved his thumb towards the skyline '- they'd be dead if the likes of us didn't turn to.'

'Aren't the rebels God's children too?'

'Of course!' He beamed again. 'It's just they don't know it yet.'

I kept my eyes down and concentrated extremely hard on de-lumping my Milo. 'Isn't killing them a bit against the rules?'

'No. We're doing the right thing. If those rebels get killed, God will forgive them at the doors to the kingdom of Heaven, because He knows they don't know any better.'

'I see. Kill 'em all, let God sort it out?'

'Do you believe in God, Nick?'

I shrugged. 'Dunno. I've always thought of Him as an imaginary friend for grown-ups. But maybe it's smart to hedge your bets. Call me an agnostic.'

If Sam thought that was an open door to try to convert me, he wasn't going to get the chance to push it. The tinny roar of the 175 Yammy got louder and I saw Frankenstein stand up in his cab to my left.

A second or two later, the machine jumped out of the dead ground, slewed round, and Davy gunned it towards the lead wagon. He looked like a twelve-year-old. He was as skinny as a pencil, and the diet here wasn't exactly helping to fill him out. He definitely needed to go home and get a few bags of fish and chips down him – though half would probably end up on the floor. He'd lost three fingers from his left hand when he was in the Tank Regiment; his driver's hatch had decided it wanted to close all by itself. Fuck knows how he'd passed Selection. He should have been modelling for an artificial-limbs catalogue, not fucking about on a 175 that weighed more than he did.

Standish came off the back of our wagon like a scalded cat and sprinted the eighty or so metres to the lead wagon.

I entertained the flies round my head as Sam kept adjusting his hat to save what was left of the skin on the back of his neck.

Seconds later, Davy jumped back on the 175 and screamed off towards the other two wagons. Standish hurried back to us and clambered aboard.

'Listen in.' He picked up the sat-comms handset as if he was about to make a serious announcement to all of the most important people in the world. 'The Mercs are still by the house, in the dead ground about two and a half Ks ahead of us. Davy has seen rebels in flatbed pickups. He also saw a body. They'd cut it limb from limb and lined up all the parts outside the gates. He couldn't tell if it was one of ours.' He tapped numbers into the dial pad. 'We'll have a rolling start line. We're going to go straight for them – get the wagons into the compound, load up, get out. No roads, cross-country to the coast.'

A cloud of dirty smoke shot from the exhaust of Frankenstein's wagon, and the other three drivers took their cue. Sam fired the ignition. 'All aboard the Skylark.' There was something childlike about Sam. It wasn't always there but just now and again the kid in him would jump out of his head. The exhaust rattled like a tumble-dryer full of spanners.

Standish was still trying to get through. 'Hello? Hello?'

I watched Davy gun his bike towards the last wagon. They'd rested a plank on the back and he just rode up it and on to the flatbed.

I checked the link one last time, settled the butt into my shoulder, then made sure I had muzzle clearance over the sandbags and wasn't about to shoot holes in the engine.

'Hello, High Commissioner? It's Miles. I sent out a recce patrol and it looks as if they're still in the building. I'll send you a sit rep as soon as we've linked up.'

The front Renault started rolling. Sam threw us into first gear and the wagon jerked. Standish fell with the set still in his hand. The heat of the engine washed over us as we moved forward.

We crested the hill in a rough diamond formation, Frankenstein at point, us to the right. The other two were to the left and rear.

Sam was worried about the sat comms getting damaged. 'You'd better close that thing down now, boss. We might need a hand on another weapon soon.'

There were eight of us bayonets, two in each wagon, and the boss made nine. We had just two GPMGs, one on each flank, so the more hands to the pump the better when this thing kicked off.

Standish started to pack the set away as if it was his own idea.

The valley opened out below us. It was maybe six or seven kilometres wide, a huge swathe of sand, scrub and dust that shimmered in the heat haze. A track snaked along the bottom from left to right. A large grey building stood to our half left, surrounded by a perimeter wall to keep out the lowlife. There was stuff going on, vehicles on the move round it. Sunlight glinted off windscreens. At this distance I couldn't see if they were the Mercs. I certainly couldn't see the row of body parts.

Standish finished packing the sat comms into its case and wedged it between the front seats, then stood up on the flatbed behind us, one hand gripping a section of frame, the other his AK. He was clearly going for the Lawrence of Arabia look.

We reached the lower ground, about a K from the target, when a light-coloured vehicle detached itself from the buildings. Its dust trail flew high into the air as it headed out to give us the once-over.

I checked that the rear leaf sight was on its battle setting of 300 metres and glanced across to see what the other GPMG was up to. One of us would have to stop and provide a stable fire base if this wagon needed to be dealt with.

It was now no more than 200 metres from Frankenstein: a white pickup, bodies and weapons in the back, though it was hard to tell how many in the dust-shimmering heat.

Sam swung the wheel half left to face them. 'There you go, get on with it.'

I got the gun in the shoulder, pushed the safety bar from left to right through the pistol grip and rested the pad of my forefinger on the trigger, ready to take up first pressure.

As the pickup got ever nearer, I closed my left eye and looked through the circle of the rear sight, adjusting the weapon until the foresight rested on the driver's side of the windscreen. The GPMG was an area weapon, which meant it was designed to fire bursts, but I'd adjusted the gas regulator so the rate of fire was slow enough that I could get off decent double-taps instead. We didn't have ammunition to spare, and needed to make every round count.

Standish leaned forward between us, as if being a foot closer would give him a better view.

My foresight kept pace with the pickup.

Sam muttered, 'If they open up, it kicks off.'

By the time the pickup had closed to within a hundred metres, I could clearly make it out: a Mazda, with two bodies in the back, both wearing red football shirts and brandishing AKs.

Even over our engine noise, I heard hollering as one of the red shirts banged on the roof of the cab. They'd seen as much as they needed to. The pickup slewed hard to the left and sped back towards the buildings, horn blaring.

Frankenstein's wagon surged forward. Sam floored the throttle and I pushed the safety from right to left.

I could see patches of grey and decayed Tarmac under the drifting sand half a K ahead. My head jerked all over the shop as Sam gunned the Renault towards it.

Then we saw that the guys we were following weren't the only vehicles in the valley. Just over a K to our left, a serious dustcloud was making its way along the road towards the plantation.