Andy McNab - Crossfire

I picked up the Afghan Times to stop me lifting the Tubigrip and picking at the scab. My arm still hurt, but not so much that I was constantly thinking about it.

A story about an Italian and his Afghan interpreter who'd been kidnapped off the street a week ago dominated the front page. The Taliban had got hold of them. Their demands weren't met, so they cut off their heads. The bodies had been found on wasteground to the south of the city. The newspaper urged Westerners not to travel anywhere without an armed guard.

The three American women returned, carrying the same little boxes with pink ribbon I'd seen before. The ribbons were soon undone and the boxes opened. They munched pastries. Maybe she wasn't pregnant after all; maybe it was just big-time wheat intolerance.

Eventually the manager arrived with a map. One of the bellhops had been sent out to a local bookshop to buy it.

I studied it as I finished my coffee. It showed all the embassies, hospitals and main mosques, and the ministry of this and the ministry of that. It sort of correlated with what I remembered of the satellite imagery, but I didn't know which had been produced first. The map still showed this hotel as the Kabul, so it was at least a year old. It didn't really matter. It would still get me to AM Net and the Gandamack.

I slipped it into the empty Bergen, which I threw over my shoulder as I headed for the door.

Two businessmen in suits exited in front of me. Both carried briefcases and dripped with sweat as they waddled towards the 4x4 two-ship waiting in the courtyard. Their BG watched as they climbed aboard the rear vehicle. Then he took the front right of the lead wagon, and they were ready to go.

I walked towards the pedestrian door at the left of the main gates. I couldn't waste time waiting for Magreb to finish work and certainly didn't want a security company to send a convoy. I had to get on.

The guard from the Hiace sprang out of the guardhouse. He lifted his upturned hand. 'No Magreb? No car?'

I smiled and shook his hand. 'It's OK, I know where I'm going. It's just round the corner.'

I overrode him with my happy face, and machine-gun English that he didn't understand. I just hoped I'd done it without pissing him off. I might be running back in about five minutes and needing that AK of his to spread the good news.

I turned left. I knew that the road soon bent round to the right, towards a roundabout. The second right after that would have me heading north into the diplomatic quarter. The Internet cafe was close to the Iranian embassy.

I was facing south. The sun was on my right. It had maybe two and a half, three hours' burning time left.

The air was hot but not sticky. Without humidity to damp it down, dust was king. Every vehicle carried a thick layer. A little kid of five or six scrawled a message on a door panel with his finger.

Traffic was heavy and slow-moving in both directions. The pavements were clogged and pedestrians spilled on to the road. People dressed in grey, white and brown wove in and out between the cars.

I passed the big mosque I'd seen from the cab. Its twin towers were sheathed in scaffolding. There was a big regeneration programme under way. The signs stuck to the railings explained that some nice Italians had signed the cheque.

The two-ship passed me, and the businessmen swivelled and stared. I gave them a glare back that said, 'Yeah, that's right, I'm walking.' What else could I do? Like Basra, Kabul wasn't exactly a hail-a-cab sort of place for foreigners. At least I kept control of where I was going – and by the look of things I'd be quicker on foot anyway. I needed to recce the cafe in daylight.

I kept my head up and strode along as if I belonged there, trying not to make myself look like a target. The traffic on the road skirting the mosque was at a standstill. I guessed it was a tailback from the drunken-sailor roundabout, but then I heard shouts and screams, amplified over the speaker system. Fuck, here we go – a mad mullah sparking everyone up on a demo, hatred for the West, that sort of shit. Why couldn't he have waited an hour?

I was against the clock here. I'd have to keep going. AM Net was one of only three known locations for Dom – I needed to find out how it would look when I came back in the morning and waited for whoever was sending the emails; I didn't need to know how it looked at dark o'clock when everyone had gone home. I also didn't want to be on the streets at night, sticking out even more like a sore thumb than I already was. If I turned the corner to find a mob, I'd just have to leg it.

Books were stacked by the hundred against walls and railings. Guys in suits and local get-up, and women, some in burqas, flicked through the pages. Nobody seemed perturbed by the noise of the demo. Stalls sold newspapers with headlines and pictures of their war in both English and Pashtun. Kabul used to be the capital of the Mughal Empire. These boys had been playing war for five hundred years.

I reached the roundabout. A bunch of drunken-sailor policemen stood in the middle of the mound. One of them yelled into a microphone and gesticulated at vehicles like a TV evangelist on speed. Behind him, a huge PA system was mounted on the roof of their green Toyota.

A guy selling olives tried to grab me. He dipped a glass into a big drum and dragged some out for me, but I brushed him off without breaking my stride.

I didn't know if it was kicking-out time in offices or some kind of public holiday, but there were thousands on the streets. The traffic was chaos, and the drunken sailors just added to it. It would have been suicide to cross now to take the right I wanted.

There was a metal pedestrian bridge just short of the junction. A poster stretched along almost the whole of its span. A smiling granddad type with a shiny bald head and perfect white teeth offered a free mountain bike in two languages to anyone who just said no to drugs.

The bottom of the steps was seething with newspaper, fruit and tea stalls. I pushed past and took the steel stairs two at a time, bobbing left and right to avoid people in the tunnel created by the roof and the hoardings that lined the sides.

I reached the far end and was about to come down. A woman laden with shopping bags laboured up the last couple of steps. I did my bit and waited for her to pass. While I waited, I looked down at the pavement.

Three guys in Gunga Din gear were staring up at me, checking me out. Their faces were gaunt and creased, a lot harder than anyone else's round here. Each had a little flower in his waistcoat, and that was the big giveaway. They were Taliban, down from the hills for a few days' R amp;R after shooting at ISAF or cutting off some Italian heads.

They watched me with total hatred in their eyes. Those boys wanted to rip me apart.

I was committed. There was nothing I could do but keep going down. If I turned and ran they'd come after me. I had to front this out.

Both hands shot to my hip. I unzipped the bum-bag with my left and jammed the right inside. My fingers closed round the padding as if it was a pistol grip.

They muttered to each other and exchanged a quick glance under their cowpats.

Two of the traffic cops stepped into the frame as I was about halfway down. They seemed interested in finding out what the three were getting sparked up about.

The cops looked at me, then at each other. At that point they also spotted the small flowers and turned on their heels.

Fuck it. I got about three-quarters of the way towards the cowpats and flicked my left hand to wave them back. 'Fuck off! Fuck off!'

People who'd been making their way up the stairs melted to either side. The ones right at the bottom decided they'd gone off the idea altogether.