Andy McNab - Brute force

I turned to go and he sighed. 'There's a lot of crazy people out there who would use them to actually hurt people.'

I hit the main artery out of town towards the bypass. I remembered the place from a job I'd done up here about five years ago. Except that wasteland and shit terraced houses had been replaced by big DIY and frozen-food stores and car outlets.

I followed the road towards the coast. The idea was to hit the sea and head east. According to the map it was about thirty miles to the mushroom farm. I wouldn't really need it: once I hit the coast road I wasn't going to miss it. I drove slowly. I didn't want to get there too early and have to hang around.

The grass either side of the road suddenly became very neatly manicured. Even the molehills had been flattened. Signs started to let me in on the secret. Sandringham was just up the road. I was sure I'd know when I got there: the air would smell of polish and fresh paint.

I carried on to Hunstanton, where the road met the sea. It was very much like any other UK coastal town, up on high ground, a bit of a cliff and a hill going down to the beach. Victorian buildings proudly lined the esplanade, but the glory days were gone. Now they all looked a bit tired.

There was the obligatory Tesco on the outskirts, and the green area on the high ground was covered with hundreds of white and cream boxes with satellite dishes on the roof so holidaymakers could come all this way and do exactly the same thing as they did at home.

I checked the rear-view regularly, mentally registering every vehicle behind me.

Bright lights flashed hopefully outside a couple of amusement arcades. I cruised about, following the one-way system around the town, looking for a steamy-windowed cafe that had what I needed.

I found one down by the Sea Life Sanctuary. The attraction was closed, but the car park was open. As I locked up the Merc and headed across the road, the sea looked as dull and cloudy as the sky.

The cappuccino I ordered came in a cup the size of a soup bowl. I grabbed a packet of ready-salted and a cheese and pickle sandwich, and logged on. As I lifted the bread and tipped in the crisps, my eyes never left the Merc, nor the two or three cars that had come into the car park after me.

I hit Google Earth and carried out a recce of the target. The days of having to do walk- or fly-pasts to get some imagery with a Hasselblad camera were long gone.

I kept checking the Merc.

The only other diners were two or three young lads in Guns N' Roses hoodies, hunched over burger and Cokes. All our tables had plastic tomato-shaped red and brown sauce squeezers, the kind that had been around in every Greasy Joe's since I was a kid. By the look of these particular ones, they had been. Dried sauce clung to the spouts. My two halves of cheese and pickle got a burst of something vinegary as the target came up on the screen.

I wanted to make it as difficult as possible for anyone that might be waiting for me. I gave my eyes a good rub to wake them up and stared at the screen.

The farm stood on a triangle of land bordered by three B roads. The site probably covered three acres. The farmhouse itself was set back from the road at the base of the triangle and there were two large outbuildings – probably the packing houses and cold stores – along either side, accessible from both roads. A further three buildings, which I took to be the growing sheds, stood in the middle of the plot. I zoomed in. It looked like mushroom rustling wasn't big business around these parts. I couldn't see any fences or floodlights.

I zoomed out to check the surrounding area and couldn't see any other buildings for at least a kilometre. Most were on the coast and around the road coming into the target area. That meant there'd be no ambient light, which suited me perfectly.

I squashed my sandwiches down a bit and got stuck in as I checked the Merc again. Crisp fragments showered the plate and my lap.

The plan was simple. I would park up short of the target on the road from the coast, and work my way towards it from within his grounds, to avoid being channelled along any of the roads. I'd gain entry to the house, grip Lynn and get him to tell me what the fuck was going on, whether he liked it or not.

If the Firm were waiting for me, too bad. I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. I'd still try to get to Lynn, get him out of there and find out what I needed to know.

I thought about Ruby and Tallulah getting into the car with me as we set off for the beach, and the front wheel pulling the piece of plastic away from between the jaws of the clothes peg. These were real people; they weren't pond life like me, up to their neck in this sort of shit. If Lynn didn't have a pretty fucking good explanation for all this, I'd kill him.

I had my final munch of sandwich and sat back and made the coffee last while I studied the target until every detail of the area had soaked into my head.

It was starting to get darker and even more miserable out there now the rain was returning. The lights of the amusement arcade flashed even brighter. I rubbed my eyes. I hadn't slept for thirty-six hours.

I examined the area around the target in more detail. If it went tits up, where would I run? What was my best escape route? It was no good heading to the right of the house, hitting a field and paralleling the road – only to find there was a raging river in between me and my car.

0126 hrs Though the rain had stopped the sky was still overcast, making the night even darker. The grass at the apex of the triangle where the road forked each side of the target was soaked.

Two large wrought-iron gates hung from stone pillars, with nothing either side of them. They were closed, and the driveway had grown over long ago. This must have been the entrance to the house when it really was just a house. Maybe Nelson and Lady Hamilton had a couple of nights out here.

Day sack over my shoulder, binocular night-viewing aid hanging round my neck, I had left the car at the entrance to a field about two hundred from the target. The pistol was tucked down the front of my jeans and the box-cutter was in the pocket of my fleece. I was glad to be moving as I bypassed the gates and hit the hard standing. It was freezing.

Alot of what-ifs raced through my mind as I approached. I'd be finding out some answers soon enough.

The family photo I'd seen on Lynn's desk in 1998 showed his wife, two kids and a Labrador. The kids had looked about nine and eleven. That would make them university age now. They would surely have come home for the Christmas vacation. What if they were still here? What about his wife? What if the wife was alone but Lynn came back while I was there? What if one or both of the children were at home? What if the whole family were out? What about the Labrador? That particular one would be dead, but Lynn would have bought another. His sort loved the smell of wet dogs in the kitchen.

I hunched down, my back against the wall of one of the breezeblock growing sheds. Judging by the complete absence of compost smell and no sign of activity from the refrigeration units, business wasn't exactly booming on the mushroom front. There were no lights at all, anywhere.

I watched and listened as the trees rustled in the wind, then switched on the night-viewing aid. The electronics kicked in with a gentle hum and the National Geographics treated me to a fantastically sharp black and white negative picture. The old guy at Norfolk Country Pursuits hadn't let me down.

I settled into the hedge and scanned the front of the Lynns' family seat. It was gracious, rectangular and Georgian, with six huge windows top and bottom and a grand doorway dead centre.

I wondered what their forebears would have made of the family having to convert three acres of front lawn and driveway into a fungus farm. Apoplectic was the word that came to mind.