Andy McNab: Meltdown

'Not bad,' he said with a shrug. 'But you took too many rounds to drop that fella behind me, didn't you?'

Danny nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah, sorry.'

Phil indicated the chair. 'Take a seat, son,' he said with a smile. 'It's your turn now.'

*

Danny and Lee, as Leroy preferred to be known, got on well from the outset, which was good news because they were going to be operating as partners for much of the time. And Danny was glad that one member of the team was a lot closer to his own age.

Now they were sitting together in a vehicle on a firing range. Their objective was to carry out an anti-ambush drill, with Danny at the wheel of the Audi A4 and Lee in the passenger seat.

Danny had proved to be an instinctive and fearless driver, without being reckless, which at the speeds he'd been travelling would soon have proved fatal. He'd advanced smoothly from the basics of cockpit drills and getting the most from the vehicle by the use of the gears, through to intensive high-speed work and then offensive and defensive driving, which was carried out on the firing ranges.

The high-speed work took place on the roads between Hereford and Bristol – everything from country lanes to forest tracks, dual carriageways, motorway, and the city of Bristol itself.

Now Danny was ready for his final test.

He was far from what anyone in the Regiment would describe as the finished article, but there was no more time. He'd had a couple of run-ins with Phil Reddington, who was almost as hard a taskmaster as his grandfather – maybe that was one of the reasons why Fergus had wanted him on the team.

Danny sat behind the wheel of the A4 as they prepared to go. Lee's MP5 was in the footwell, covered by a coat, just as it would have been if they were out on the street. The automatic machine gun was an excellent car weapon. Its collapsible butt made concealment easy, but the 9mm high-powered rounds could easily rip through a vehicle windscreen.

Lee looked at Danny. 'You ready then?'

Danny pulled his seat belt across his body, but he didn't click it home. On operations, they didn't wear seat belts because of the time it took to unbuckle them. Even SAS troops under fire have forgotten to unbuckle themselves, losing precious seconds in getting out of a vehicle to take on the enemy.

That was why Danny and Lee had Velcro glued to the buckle and holder. The seat belt had to look as if it were being worn correctly so that they blended in with the third party.

Danny secured the belt and nodded. 'Yep.'

He pressed the send button on the gear stick and spoke into the concealed microphone on the dashboard.

That's Delta One mobile.'

Danny shoved the gear stick into first and got his foot down; soon he was doing seventy mph along the narrow track, cutting through the woods towards the range. The trees on either side became a green blur, and when Danny took it over a rise, the A4 flew into the air, the engine roaring. Lee pushed his feet into the footwell to support himself as they touched down again and the range came into view about half a mile away.

Danny hit the gear stick pressel, taking a sharp bend as the track cut across fields.

'That's Delta One approaching the range.'

Lee's MP5 was still in the footwell; he wouldn't draw down the weapon until it was needed. Everything was played as if it were for real.

The A4 was still doing seventy as it entered the range. Ahead, Danny saw a tall berm – a thick manmade earthworks, five metres high on three sides of the square, so that rounds could be fired to the sides as well as forward.

In front of the vehicle were six wooden targets – men and women in civvies, all of them holding weapons. An explosion directly in front of them lifted a fireball into the air and Danny hit the brake and pressed the send pressel.

'Contact! Contact! Wait out!'

Lee had already raised his MP5; he pulled out the butt before ramming it into his shoulder and pushing down the safety. The A4 skidded towards the enemy; Danny's feet were pushed hard down onto the brake and clutch and he fought to keep the vehicle straight as Lee started firing.

The windscreen shattered and the automatic weapon's empty casings bounced off the roof and down onto Danny. As the A4 screeched to a standstill, Lee was still firing and giving Danny some cover.

'Go, Danny! Go!'

Danny didn't need telling twice. He pushed open the door and launched himself out of the vehicle, the Velcro ripping away and freeing the seat belt. Rolling onto the ground, he pulled out his pistol from the pancake holster on his right hip and began firing from beneath the door.

'Go! Go! Go!'

Instead of rolling out and taking cover, Lee dropped his MP5 and empty mag to the ground, drew down his own pistol and moved forward. He stopped in front of the vehicle, putting down rounds into the x-rays.

'Go!'

It was Danny's cue to move again. He stopped firing and leaped to his feet, running past the front of the A4 until he was a couple of metres ahead. He dropped down onto one knee and took on the x-rays.

'Go!'

Lee had started moving forward as soon as he heard Danny firing. They were taking the fight to the enemy; it was known as 'fire and manoeuvre', meaning that there was always someone firing while the other moved. They were working well together.

Danny reached his next position and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The top slide was held back because he was out of ammo.

'Stoppage!'

Lee stopped moving and put down fire; Danny pushed the mag-release catch with his thumb and the empty mag fell to the ground. He pulled a full one from his jacket pocket, reloaded and released the top slide catch with his thumb as he ran on. It rammed forward, picking up a round at the top of the mag and loading it.

Stopping just a metre short of the targets, Danny was close enough to put double taps into their heads as Lee ran up to join him; they continued firing until they ran out of ammo.

They unloaded their weapons and glanced at each other. They'd done well. All targets were punctured with their double taps and they had put down fire continuously as they moved forward.

Phil had watched the whole exercise, and for once there was a slight smile on his face.

That evening he called Fergus in Manchester. 'We're done. As ready as we'll ever be.'

'How did Danny get on?'

Fergus waited while Phil considered his reply, and when it came, it was almost exactly what he had expected.

'He can be cocky, and headstrong, and sometimes he thinks he knows it all without being told. But he's done good. And I've got to admit, he's a tough little bastard. How's phase two going?'

Fergus smiled into the telephone. 'Going to plan. See you in Manchester.'

Manchester, England 'We've checked you out, Mr Watts.'

'I would have been worried if you hadn't.'

'Ex-SAS. More medals than David Beckham. Quite a hero, before it all went wrong.'

'If you've done all your checks, you'll know that I've been officially pardoned.'

'Oh, we have. We know everything about you; we followed the stories with great interest. You're famous. We like that.'

Fergus and the Headingham twins were standing in a large yard enclosed by a high fence topped with barbed wire. The stench of petrol and charred rubber and leather hung in the air as they inspected the remains of four burned-out coaches. They were totally destroyed – nothing more than blackened skeletons.

Two pristine coaches with matching black gloss livery and darkened windows stood well away from the wrecked vehicles; across the yard a couple of young guys leaned against the wall of a huge workshop with open double doors. Inside, another coach was being steam-cleaned.

Fergus was meeting Teddy and Will Headingham for the first time. He'd seen the surveillance pics and read the int: identical twins, twenty-two, privileged background, same prep school, public school and university – Oxford, of course – same degree in chemistry, now partners in business together, running a fleet of luxury coaches to football matches on the continent – at least that was their legit business.