Andy McNab - Agressor

'Fanatics? The little girl we heard couldn't have been more than five years old!' Flecks of spittle flew from Tony's mouth. 'What are you doing? What is going on? This is madness! This is murder!'

Bastard stared down at him as he wiped his face. 'Murder? Well, chew on this, fag. It's your goddam gas, so I guess that makes you an accessory.'

Tony stepped back, stunned.

Bastard revelled in the sight. 'Kinda catches in the back of your throat, don't it?' He looked up to share the moment with the crowd. 'Hey, just like that gas of yours.'

That did it for Tony. He pulled his hand back and bunched it, but Bastard was too quick for him. His own fist connected with Tony's chest. As he pulled back for another punch, I moved behind him, grabbed his arm and pulled, adding momentum to the swing. He did a 180 on the spot.

Bastard was quick to square up to me as I stood my ground instead of following through with some punches to put him down. It was the right thing to do; he hadn't attacked me, after all. He had lost face, and needed to reassert; that was OK, I understood that, I couldn't let that happen. He was a big man, and if one of those fists made contact I was going to need one of those non-existent ambulances. But it was too late for me to worry about that now.

Bastard started towards me, just as a shout went up from one of the vehicles, half in shock, half in celebration. 'Fire! Fire!'

Bastard turned his head. I grabbed Tony. 'Get the kit together, we're fucking off!'

Four or five columns of smoke started to rise from the compound as we ran. Even if there had been a fire crew in place, the combination of the heat of the day, the wind and the gas – that would now have dried to a fine powder – made the chances of putting it out next to zero.

As if on cue, a policeman jumped down from his wagon, ran a few metres towards the compound, then turned back to face the crowd. He unfurled an ATF flag for all to see. 'It's a potbellied stove!' he half shouted, half laughed. 'Open it up, let the fuckers burn!'

He waved the flag and scores of men hooted and hollered. In the background, I heard a barrel organ. The fairground was sparking up.

Noosa, Queensland Thursday, 21 April 2005 The sun had been chargrilling the top of my foot, but it took me a long time to notice. The sand I was gazing at was just too blindingly white, the sea too dazzlingly blue.

I pulled it back under the table, and leaned forward to suck up the last of my milkshake. I always made a gurgling noise when I got to the dregs, on principle. Not that anyone at the Surfers' Club seemed to mind. They were too busy surfing-and-turfing their way through the kind of mammoth lunches Silky and I had just put away.

While I waited for her to come back with a couple of ice creams, I had one last slurp and got back to admiring the view. Sun, sea, sand, and thousands of miles of bush behind me; coming here had definitely been the right call.

She returned with two cones, the contents of which were already dripping down her hands. I got the chocolate one.

'I cannot believe you were going to go round America instead.' Silky licked tutti-frutti off her free hand and sat down. 'I just saw George Bush on TV. He says Iran and Syria are next on the list. I do not understand that man. What is the matter with him?'

She came from Berlin. I had known her for three months, and her accent still reminded me of the black-and-white war films I used to watch as a kid.

'I mean, why doesn't he just talk to them?' She hooked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ear so it didn't fall across her face, before bending down to give some serious attention to her cone. 'I have been to Syria – they're nice people.'

'Your fault for looking at the TV.' I sat up. 'I don't even read the newspapers now. It's all bullshit. And when you've got a view like that,' I nodded in the direction of the incoming waves, 'what more do you need?'

Her head tilted sharply and her blue eyes speared me over the top of her sunglasses. 'After last night, you still have to ask this?'

I grinned. 'The ocean will still be here tomorrow. But will Silky? One can never tell with you hippies.'

She arched an eyebrow. 'Just because George Bush keeps adding to his list, Nick, doesn't mean that you have to keep cutting from yours…'

'That's me. Hand luggage only.'

Silky nodded thoughtfully, dumped the rest of the cone on her plate and wiped her hands.

'Bush can live his dream.' I looked back at the sea. A line of surfers rode a perfect wave. 'I'll have mine.'

And I did. Bumming round Australia in a camper van, freefall rig in the back, a backpacker along for the ride. The only bit of pressure each day was deciding whether to risk looking like a dickhead on a surfboard, or to do something I was pretty good at, jumping out of aeroplanes. Only dress code, T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops – and the collection of friendship bracelets I'd accumulated over the last few months around my wrist. Money wasn't a problem. When I ran short, I just drove to another boogie [freefall parachute meet] and packed rigs. I didn't regret for a moment dumping Plan A, to buy a bike and tour the States. One look at the CNN weather forecast for November back in Washington had been enough.

Silky checked her watch. 'Better hit the road if we're going to make it by tonight.'

'You still want to come?'

'Of course. I want to meet your friends.' She stood up and adjusted her cut-off Levis. 'And we hippies never turn down a free bed.'

It felt pretty good to see all the men turn as she brushed her hand across her long, tanned thighs as we walked to the car park. She'd taken my lectures about sand discipline to heart. I liked to keep the stuff on the beach, where it belonged, and not in vehicles and tents.

The sun was fierce on my shoulders and head, and I knew what was coming. It was hot as an oven inside the 1980s, box-shaped, mustard-coloured VW combi. The guy who'd sold it to me in Sydney had thrown in the corrugated tinfoil window screen for free, but I never remembered to put it up.

Silky made a final check that she wasn't bringing any sand in with her and threw a beach towel over the burningly hot PVC.

'It'll feel cooler once we get moving,' I said.

'What will?' She pouted. 'The van, or us?'

The air-cooled wagon chugged slowly out of the car park and through the busy streets of the little resort. It looked as if it had been around the planet a couple of times, let alone a continent. I hoped it wasn't going to finally throw in the towel before I got back to Sydney, cleaned the thick layers of bug kill off the windscreen, and sold it to some other sucker.

We hit the highway south to Brisbane and I was soon on autopilot, elbows on the steering wheel as I stared at the long straight ribbon of tarmac and through the shimmering heat haze. Silky sorted out a cassette from the shoebox between us. There weren't many still intact; she'd left the box on the seat one afternoon and most of them had melted so badly they looked as if they belonged on a Salvador Dali canvas.

The Libertines sparked up through the crackly door speakers and were soon competing with the rush of wind through the side windows.

Silky settled back in her seat, her sandalled feet resting on the dashboard. A few songs in, she turned to me and said, 'We're a good fit, no?'

I didn't know where that had come from, but she was right. Coming to this place and meeting her had been one of the best things I'd ever done.

It hadn't been a tough decision, binning George. I never got to find out which department of the CIA or the Pentagon he worked for, and really didn't give a shit any more.

I just got up one morning, packed everything I owned into two cheap holdalls and a day sack, and went to the office. I told George the truth. I'd had enough; I was mentally fucked. I sat across the desk from him, waiting for one of his habitually scathing replies. 'I need you until you're killed or I find somebody better, and you aren't dead yet.' But it didn't happen. Instead I got, 'Be gone by tomorrow, son.' The war would go on without me.