Andy McNab: Deep Black

I stopped when a branch blocked my way, took a few paces back or sideways, tried to move round the obstacle and not make noise. Now that I'd slowed, I was more aware of the scratches to my face. My salty sweat made them as painful as wasp stings. My sockless feet had blistered in my boots. My whole body felt as if it was boiling under all the layers.

I stayed focused, trying to keep my sense of direction. An engine started up to our left. I guessed it must be further up the track, the other side of the hedgehogs. I hoped it didn't move. If it did, and up towards the house, I'd have to assume it was going to pick up the target. I'd have to get out of the trees and take it on. There'd be a gang-fuck with so many bodies about, and only nineteen rounds.

We came to the edge of the forestry block. I dropped to my knees and crawled the last two metres on my own. After the inky blackness of the canopy, the stars seemed as bright as the sun.

The wall facing me was the one running along the right-hand side of the compound as viewed from the track. The door into the family courtyard was about forty metres down it. Beyond the wall I could catch just the odd glimpse of terracotta rooftop. The three- or four-metre strip of rough grass between the wall and the treeline was white with frost. No vehicles or bodies had been along it tonight.

Somebody near the checkpoint had a bout of coughing. Maybe it was the exhaust fumes. The engine was still on, but the vehicle was stationary.

I moved back to grab Jerry, and together we followed the edge of the trees away from the checkpoint, towards the family entrance. We came level, and I inched forward.

I looked left. No movement from the checkpoint. Vehicle still stationary.

I moved over the grass, leaving sign in the frost. There was no gap between the doors, but maybe an inch and a half beneath them. I got down on my knees, then lay flat on the ground. The grass was icy against my cheek. I couldn't see any light or movement at ground level. There wasn't the perspective to see any higher up.

I got back on my feet and gave the doors a gentle push where they joined, just in case they were unlocked. As if.

I moved back to Jerry and knelt down next to him. We stayed like that, just inches apart, as I got out the Thuraya and powered it up, one hand cupped over the display.

I crawled forward a couple of metres, got a signal, and pressed Send on the new number. There was only one ring before the monotone answered.

I talked normally, but kept my voice low. 'It's Nick. Get a fix: what's the time to target?'

Monotone came back, 'Eleven minutes, twenty-two seconds to target.'

Slowly and, I hoped, clearly, I began to explain the set-up of the house to him as if he was walking through the guest doors – the guest courtyard with its one-storey building dead ahead, and two-storey guest accommodation to the left, with the passageway into the family compound where the buildings met.

I checked after each detail with 'Roger so far?' I got back, 'Affirmative,' each time.

'The target's last location was the far right corner of the long building in the family courtyard. Roger so far?'

'Affirmative. We have a fix on you. I repeat, we have a fix.'

'Roger that. Wait out for the fire-control order: I do not have a target yet. This is not a weapons-free zone. You understand?'

There was a second or two's pause. Then, 'Affirmative.'

'Roger that. Wait out.'

I kept the Thuraya switched on. I wanted to be able to pull it out, get a satellite, and start talking the moment we had the target. Until then, I didn't want some colonel, or whoever was watching the screens in the operations room and making decisions, to go and hit whatever he saw on the other side of the wall because he was flapping about fucking up.

We needed to be well away from here when the Hellfires came calling. The target had to die. There was no margin for error.

The operators in the AWACS would be watching their screens, running checks on the Predators' surveillance packages as Bosnia passed beneath them. The forward-looking infrared would be giving the operators a green negative of the landscape. Thermal imagers aboard the UAVs would be homing in on heat: the hotter the source, the whiter the image. Bodies would be picked out easily, even through the canopy. Just as important would be the LTD in the nose, and the feedback saying that the Hellfires were online and ready to go.

I crawled back to Jerry. 'Listen, they're here in about ten. The doors are locked. I need you to get over the wall and open them. I've got to stay this side. If that wagon comes to pick him up at the other doors, I'll need to get down there with the G3.'

He started getting to his feet. I grabbed him. 'When you get to the other side, you might not be able to open it, you realize that? It might be padlocked and then you're in the shit unless you can get back over. You understand what I'm telling you?'

There was no point bullshitting him. We'd come too far now and he needed to know.

He put a hand firmly on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. 'I'm already in the shit.'

He let go and started rummaging in his parka. 'I think I'd better split these up.' He handed me one of the cameras. 'Just in case. It'll make a little money for Renee. She's with Chloe, at her mother's in Detroit.'

I shoved it into my pocket.

'She's staying there until I get back from Brazil. You'll find her. Give it to her. She'll know what to do with it.'

We both started across the grass. I laid the G3 on the ground and got my back against the wall, eyes straining down to the right, towards the checkpoint. The wagon's engine still turned over in the darkness.

I bent my legs and cupped my hands between my thighs. Jerry stepped back a little, positioned his right foot in them as a launch pad, and jumped up. I kept contact with his foot, twisting myself round towards the wall and pushing myself up until it was past my face. Then I held it against the wall so he had something to push against. He hooked his arms over the top, and seemed to stay like that for ages. I didn't know if he was flapping, didn't have the strength to get the rest of his body over, or had spotted something.

A few seconds later, he started to scramble over the wall and his foot left my hands.

I picked up the G3 and put my ear against the door just as he landed with a bump the other side. Almost immediately, there was the gentle groan of metal being drawn across metal.

The door opened very, very slowly. I let Jerry do it: he was in control.

As I slipped through and into the courtyard, Jerry closed it again behind me. He didn't bolt it.

To my right, ten or eleven metres away, was the room where we'd last seen the target. The lamps were still burning.

Somewhere in the darkness, cooking pans clanged. To my left was the one-storey building separating the two courtyards. There were no windows this side of it. The first floor of the guest block, where we had showered, was completely dark.

I got the butt into the shoulder, flicked the safety on to single-shot, and positioned my trigger finger along the guard. Keeping Jerry behind me, I started to move towards the illuminated window. There was going to be nothing covert about this: there wasn't enough time. I had no option but to open doors and look through windows.

I knelt beneath the window, to the right of the grime-covered frame. As I slowly raised my head, I could see the door to the left. I came up some more. The oil lamps were still burning where Jerry had left them. But the room was empty.

Even the meal things had been taken away.

I lowered myself, still butt in the shoulder, safety off, and began to follow the wall to the veranda and the door we'd gone through. No shoes outside; no target inside.