Andy McNab - Zero hour

I scrambled onto my hands and knees. I had to stand. I had to keep on my feet. Go down and you're finished.

Neo number two was back and at me. He leapt on top of me. We grappled like a couple of scrappers in the schoolyard. I tried to head-butt him, bite him, anything to get him off me. I kicked and bucked. Both of us screamed. He had a week's bristle on him that rasped against my cheek. The boy stank. I could smell booze, cigarettes and unwashed skin. My face was stuck into his neck. I tried to get my hands up to squeeze against it. He snorted with exertion and snot fired from his nose.

He finally opened his eyes and I could see them bouncing around, out of control. He was in a frenzy. He managed to get his hands around my neck and squeezed. I tried to shake left and right. He started to snarl like a pit-bull.

He was on top of me, on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his body. My arse felt like I'd sat on a branding iron, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about that. If I could get him closer he couldn't exert the same pressure round my neck as he leant in to me.

He lifted his head and snarled. It gave me a chance. I tried to head-butt him, tried to make contact wherever I could. I tried to bite into his cheek. He jerked his head away. I could taste his week-old sweat.

His mouth opened as he threw his face down onto the top of my head. He bit into my scalp. I could hear the skin break as his teeth sank in, and then the sound of him straining to bite harder.

I managed to get my legs tighter around his gut as the fucker started to pull his head back. I could feel the snorting from his nose as his teeth dug into my scalp and scraped along the bone.

I shoved my hands up in front of his face as my capillary bleeding sprayed the ground and ran down the back of my neck. My thumbs searched for his eyeballs and found the cheekbones and then went on from there. I pushed them down into the sockets. He jerked his head back. His teeth had to lose their grip. He needed to scream.

I moved my right hand so I had a flat palm underneath his chin, then switched my left to his ear. I didn't have much choice. If he'd had a fistful of hair I'd have grabbed that instead. He howled at me through clenched teeth.

I wanted to break his neck. To do that I had to screw it off, like I was turning a tap. I had to take the head off at the atlas, the small joint at the base of the skull. It's not so hard if you're doing it against a body that's standing. If you get them off balance as they're going down, you can twist and turn at the same time, so their own momentum works against them. But all I could do was keep my legs around him and try to hold him in one place.

I managed to get my boots interlocked, and at last I could squeeze and push down with my legs, at the same time twisting up with my arms as hard as I could. I kept on turning. We both screamed at each other. He bit my hand, trying to jerk his jaw left and right. This wasn't so much about him trying to kill me. I didn't know what he was doing. He was totally out of it.

I slid my left hand round the back of his head. I kept the palm of my right under his jaw and pushed up and round. His neck went with not too much of a crack. He slumped down without making a sound. His body didn't even twitch. He just went very still. I rolled over and kicked him off.

My vision was blurred. Pain seared the top of my head. Blood ran down behind my ear. But scalp wounds always look worse than they are. They're seldom serious. All there is on top is skin and bone.

My lungs were bursting. I sucked in oxygen as I rolled over onto my front. I forced myself up, ready for the next wave. But the drama wasn't what I was expecting.

Angeles was kneeling over the other body. He was lying on his back. Her arm moved up and down, up and down, into his body. Blood covered her hands and face as she stabbed and stabbed into his chest.

'It's OK – stop!'

I staggered over to her and caught her arm in mid-air as it headed down for another strike. I eased the Leatherman from her fingers and threw it on the floor. My right hand had a bright pink oval shape where the acid had etched into the top layers of skin, exposing the sensitive stuff beneath.

The area round the other guy's right eye had swollen so much it swamped the eyeball. The left one was open and dull.

Angeles convulsed with sobs, maybe from relief, maybe from fear. Maybe it was just happiness at getting back at these fuckers. I didn't know, and right now I didn't care. All I had to do was make sure we were secure.

'Wait here.'

I staggered through the fire door and down to the entrance. I locked up. When I returned to the loading bay she'd hardly moved from her kneeling position next to the body.

I stood over her and lifted gently under her armpits. 'It's OK. Let's go.'

I'd sort all this shit out later. For now, I needed her to get out of here before it all sank in and she started howling at the moon.

I helped her to her feet. She turned and put her arms around me and sobbed quietly into my chest.

In theory, the immediate priority was to get her cleaned up, and after that, to do the same to the loading bay. But she needed comforting. I put my arms around her and rocked her from side to side. 'It's OK, you're safe. It's all over. I'll look after you. Everything's going to be OK.'

I took her straight over to the shower and turned it on. There was a hum of electrics as it kicked off. Five minutes later she was still standing there, arms down at her sides, shoulders dropped.

'Get in there. Clean yourself up. Get some clean clothes on. You'll feel better.'

She didn't move. She just stared down at the blood on her hands.

She had to wash it off her quickly if she was to have any chance of putting this behind her. The longer you smell it, the longer you see and feel it, the deeper it digs into you. Every time she smelt blood in a butcher's shop, she'd think about today. Every time she had red ink or paint on her fingers, it would take her straight back. It didn't matter that the fuckers deserved it, or that she'd exacted some kind of revenge. If she kept being reminded of what had just happened, she'd be haunted for the rest of her life.

Steam billowed out of the shower and into the room. I dabbed at a pearl of blood that ran down my forehead. It would stop soon. I coaxed her towards the door. 'In you go. I'll take care of everything. Just get cleaned up, yeah?'

I wasn't getting any reply.

'Angeles, do that now? Please?'

I took her face gently in both my hands and bent down to try and get some eye-to-eye. There wasn't just blood on her hands now, but blood on her cheeks as well.

Finally she looked at me. 'Is he dead?'

'Yes.' There was no point denying it. 'But you did nothing wrong. You did a good thing. They would have killed us. You have saved your own life – and you have saved mine. Do you understand?'

Her eyes dropped.

'You understand that what you've done is good, don't you?'

Her head nodded slowly.

I kept my voice low and soft. 'Angeles, take your time. Clean up. But first, give me your clothes. I'm going to go downstairs, and I'm going to sort everything out. Do you understand?'

She gave a nod and I let go of her face. She started to undress and I went to the sink. The cold water on my hand felt almost as bad as the acid had, but I knew it was the only way. In a perfect world I'd have kept it up for at least half an hour, but that wasn't going to happen.

She came out with her bloodstained clothes in a bundle. Her shoulders were hunched. Her skin was goose-bumped all over. She looked like she belonged in a horror movie. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, but her hands and face were crimson.

'That's great. Now go and have a shower. I'm going to bring the shopping up.' I gave her a smile. I pointed to her hair. 'You'll be needing the brush, won't you?'