Andy McNab - Brute force

Another body came in behind him and got to work with his boots.

I went down.

I felt a hand on the back of my head. It grabbed a clump of my hair and yanked it up. I didn't need to focus big-time to see the box-cutter in his free hand.

He tapped the handle against my forehead. 'Later.'

The English was heavily accented and he wasn't smiling.

Two sets of hands grabbed my arms and dragged me fast along the floor. My chest banged over the threshold and then, agonizingly, my knees and shins.

I felt the difference in temperature the moment we were out on the red lino. They hauled me through another doorway, over another threshold, and my breath immediately clouded.

Were we outside?

There were lights either side of me, and I could hear the sea.

I could also hear a girl sobbing, and then a woman's shout. 'Bring them over! Bring them over!'

I lifted my head. I was in the cargo hold of a small ship or the cold store of a fishing trawler. Lights ran down two sides of an eight- by six-metre space. The deck was three or four metres above me. It was a small vessel, but you didn't need that much room to cart around a few hundred kilos of white powder.

In the far left-hand corner of the hold, towards the bow, was a huddle of bodies. I could see the back of the head of the one who was crying. Ruby. Holding her, protecting her, was Tallulah. Her eyes were fixed on me. Dom and Siobhan were there too, holding each other. All four were cuddled up, sharing body warmth. All they had on were jumpers.

Mairead stood over them. She turned as I was dropped onto the cold steel floor of the hold. I saw the camcorder in her hand. She came over and shoved it into my face.

'Now's your time, Nick. Now you get to tell everyone what you know. Tell the truth and they all go free. They all get on the boat with me. Everyone else has gone. The crew's gone, the shipment's gone. We're the only ones left. You're staying here – you know that. Accept it. But tell your story, and if I believe it they go free.'

My face rested on the freezing metal. Running along the skin of the hull, I saw four dustbin lids held in place by gaffer tape. Det cord ran up into the lids and back out again.

The ring main.

I moved my head, but I could see no detonator on that side, no TPU. Maybe there wasn't one. Maybe she had a remote control: they'd get on a tender or something and fuck off before pressing the button.

And in that moment, I knew beyond any doubt that none of us were going to get away from here. All five of us were good as dead.

I lay watching the two Russians' boots pace up and down. I turned my head when Mairead told one of them to rig up some arc lights.

I made eye contact with Tallulah. She had Ruby in her arms, head into her shoulder so she couldn't see me. The little one was shivering and sobbing.

I made myself cut away. I didn't want the Russians to see that we cared for each other. And in any case, I was just too exhausted, and I needed to think.

One. I hadn't seen any weapons apart from the box-cutter.

Two. They must have another boat tied up alongside for Mairead and the two Russians. Or was she so hell-bent on revenge she just wanted to hear me say the magic words and then blow us all to hell?

The bow end of the hold was soon bathed in light.

I got slowly and painfully to my feet when told to do so.

Mairead turned to Dom. 'You too.'

She filmed us both as we made our way to what had been transformed into a well-lit performance area and stood facing each other.

I saw Tallulah over Dom's shoulder, still trying to console Ruby. She cuddled her, rocked her back and forth in time with the movement of the boat.

I glanced at Dom. His eyes told their own story.

He nodded in the direction of the camera. 'What is it you want me to do?'

I kept my head down, focusing on the position of the two Russians. Their top halves had disappeared into the shadows thrown by the beams of light directed at me and Dom, but I could see their boots.

'You're going to interview Nick. Ask him about the Bahiti.'

'Bahiti? I don't understand-'

'You don't have to. Your man's going to tell you. Nick, I want you to speak to the camera. Dominick, when he's told you, you're going to ask him a direct question. Ask him if he was the man who killed Ben Lesser. And Nick, you're going to say yes.'

'Ben Lesser?'

'My father. Nick murdered my father.'

The camera zoomed in on me.

'Isn't that right, Nick? You're going to tell us the truth for the first time in your sorry little life. If not, everybody dies.'

Tallulah could contain herself no longer. 'I've got a child here, for God's sake! She doesn't have to watch this. Let her go.'

Mairead turned and filmed her. 'Oh but she does. She needs to know. She's the age I was when Nick took my daddy away from me.'

The time had come. I wasn't exactly match-fit, but I was running short of choices.

I lunged at Mairead, screaming at the top of my voice.

Her face didn't register surprise or fear, just anger. She tried to back away. I grabbed the camcorder with both hands. My eyes were fixed on her face as I swung it down onto her head. She screamed and fell, her body colliding against mine as she went down.

Box-cutter was a metre away, going for a weapon in the waistband of his jeans.

I yelled at Dom: 'Take the other one!' and threw the camcorder at Box-cutter. It bounced off his shoulder.

I dived at him as the weapon came up, slammed into him and made a grab for his arm. His roar echoed around the hull as we hit the deck.

I had two hands on his bicep, trying to force his hand down at the same time as he tried to bend his arm to shoot.

The weapon went off.

I dropped my head and sank my teeth into his cheek.

He screamed and bucked like a wild animal, shook his head left and right. His whole body arched, desperate to throw me off.

His left hand swung round and grabbed my hair and wrenched me off his face.

The weapon clattered onto the steel and spun away into the shadows.

I scrambled towards it, kicking and punching behind me as his arms closed round my leg.

Then Tallulah shouted: 'Run! Run! Run!'

A small pair of legs rushed across my field of view, heading for the door.

The sudden pain was excruciating; sharp, deep, intense; exploding outwards from the top of my thigh.

It got even worse as the Stanley knife plunged in again and this time carved its way down the back of my leg.

I twisted and thrashed to escape the blade.

I had to get to the pistol.

The blade dug in again. I squirmed and it gouged its way out. I half turned and saw it raised once more.

That blade was my whole world now. I grabbed his wrist with both hands and wrenched it towards my face. I twisted it until the back of his hand was against my mouth. I opened my teeth and bit into taut skin and tendon.

He screamed as he pulled his other hand free and hammered his fist on the back of my neck.

I butted him with the back of my head, again and again, yelling like a madman. I found a bit of extra strength and jerked both my hands clockwise. There was a crack as his wrist snapped.

The blade dropped free.

I let go of his wrist and it flapped like a broken wing. I grabbed the blade and punched hard into the back of his neck, and pulled.

There was a gush of air and a wobbling, rasping sound from the hole in his windpipe.

The two women were all over Mairead, fists flailing as anger poured out of them and into her curled-up figure. Primal forces were driving Tallulah; what she was doing was beyond her control.