Andy McNab - Boy soldier

Deveraux turned to Fincham. 'Body? What body?'

Fincham took his left hand from the steering wheel and gestured for Deveraux to wait. 'And Moyes?'

'Still in Blakeney, sir.'

'Well done, Fran. Wait out, I'll call you back.'

The rain was beginning to ease. Fincham ended the call and switched the windscreen wipers back to normal speed. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the road as he spoke to Deveraux. 'Meacher was a serious security risk, an old man who knew too much. Had Moyes talked him into revealing details of the deniable operators policy it could have led to severe embarrassment. Questions in the House, newspaper scandal. Best avoided.'

'So we killed him?' Deveraux was struggling to keep her temper in check. 'Just in case he said the wrong thing?'

Fincham still didn't look towards her as he replied. 'Meacher died in a tragic boating accident, Marcie.'

'But you could have consulted me on this, sir. Asked my opinion.'

This time Fincham did turn to Deveraux when he spoke. His eyes were cold and hard. 'I have high hopes for you, Marcie, very high. But I run the section my way and I make the decisions. Remember that.'

Deveraux didn't respond. There were many things she could have said, and wanted to say, but her ongoing mission was more important. So she held her tongue and regained her usual composure before speaking again. 'Sir, as you knew what was happening last night, why are we going through with this trip?'

'We're going to offer Mrs Meacher our condolences and at the same time we can establish exactly what she does or doesn't know.'

He saw Deveraux glance quickly towards him and smiled at her. 'No, Marcie, I'm not anticipating any sort of unfortunate accident as far as Mrs Meacher is concerned. Get back to Fran, will you? Tell her to lift off Moyes for now. I want the team to get a trigger on Meacher's house so that it's secure for our arrival. I don't want any interruptions.'

Deveraux reached for the car phone. 'And what about Moyes, sir?'

'We'll pick him up later. Once he learns of Meacher's demise, he'll concentrate on finding Watts, which is exactly what we want him to do.'

The rain had stopped and the windscreen wipers squeaked over dry glass. Fincham switched them off. 'And then we can bring this operation to a satisfactory conclusion.'

'Yes, sir,' said Deveraux softly. 'Exactly.'

According to the map Elena had provided, the derelict brick and flint barn was less than a mile from Meacher's house. Fergus decided it was the perfect place to carry out the final preparations for the OP on the house.

The storm had rolled on inland but water was still tipping through the holes in the remaining roof tiles as Fergus and Danny started to unzip their day sacks.

'We'll make this place the ERV,' said Fergus. 'If we get split up make your way back here and wait for six hours. If I don't show up you get out and go to the press. Remember that – and don't go back to Foxcroft.'

'There was a reporter at the Victory Club when I was there,' said Danny. 'Bloke called Eddie Moyes. He wrote stories about you when you were in Colombia.'

'Then find him. But you make sure you get the story to one of the nationals.'

Danny nodded and took the food they'd bought on their last shopping trip from his bag. 'So what do you want me to do with this stuff?'

'Take the Mars bars from their wrappers and open the cans of luncheon meat and wrap everything in cling film.' He saw Danny's puzzled look. 'We can't just walk up to Meacher's and knock on the door, we need to know exactly who's there. We might be waiting a long time, and I get hungry, even if you don't.'

'Yeah, but why the cling film?'

'Noise. The OP could be close enough to the house to spit at. And that's why we're taking still water in plastic bottles – no cans of fizz to give us away. Until this morning we've been staying away from danger areas; now we're going into one. We've been reacting; it's time to act.'

Danny felt a surge of fear as the reality of what his grandfather had said hit home. But Fergus seemed unconcerned; he was checking the items he'd bought from the garden centre and a hardware store. He looked up and saw that Danny was staring at him. 'Something wrong?'

Danny hesitated before he replied. 'You said you'd tell me about the time you didn't own up to being scared.'

Fergus's clipped reply was tinged with irritation. 'Why d'you want to know all this? We need to get on.'

'Because… because I'm scared.'

Fergus dropped the hammer and bag of nails he was holding into his day sack. He nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah, course you are,' he said a lot more gently. 'Look, leave that stuff for a minute. Come and sit down.'

The steady flow of rainwater streaming down the ancient walls was beginning to slow, and they sat side by side on a pile of fallen brick and flint. 'I was nineteen, a lance corporal in South Armagh leading a foot patrol. Reckoned I was dead hard with my bayonet and my tin hat. Suddenly I turned a corner and there's a group of guys wearing masks, getting ready to ambush another patrol.'

He shook his head as he remembered the chaos of what had followed. 'All the training, slick weapons drills, everything just went out of the window because I was shitting myself. The terrorists were too. One guy – I saw his eyes go wide under his mask, we were that close – I was firing at him; he was firing at me. Firing and firing, until he went down. I killed him, but it could just as easily have been me dead in the road.'

Danny was staring down at his trainers, unable to look at his grandfather as he finished the grisly story. 'After the contact, none of my mates wanted to talk about fear. That's what young infantry battalions are like, all bravado. They just wanted the war story, maybe because they were frightened of their own fear. I wasn't man enough to say I'd been scared, terrified, I just told them what they wanted to hear.'

Fergus got up and gathered together his sleeping bag and spare clothes. 'What I learned later, as I got older, is that everyone is scared in a contact. It's fear that makes you react when you're being fired at, it's fear that makes you move towards the enemy, and it's fear that makes you do what you do to survive.' He looked at Danny. 'Being scared is good. Anyone who tells you they're never scared is a liar.'

Danny went back to his bag and continued wrapping the food in cling film. But there was something more he needed to ask. 'How many people have you killed?'

'Blimey, you don't want much, do you?' said Fergus. 'Look, that's… it's private… personal. Something I have to live with, and something I don't talk about, not even to you.'

'But how do you cope with seeing someone killed?' said Danny. 'I'm trying to understand.'

'You just deal with it,' answered Fergus as he gathered together the spare kit and clothes. 'You don't have a choice. You just deal with it.'

He hid the kit and clothes behind the pile of brick and rubble. 'We'll take only what we need, in the day sacks. We can pick up this stuff later, but I'll take the rest of the cash, just in case someone finds what we leave here. Now, let's go.'

They were still both soaked to the skin as they neared the driveway leading to Meacher's house. Danny's jeans were heavy and clung to his legs; his skin felt cold and clammy. Back at the barn he had been about to ask why they hadn't changed into dry kit, but had decided to keep his mouth shut. He knew he would find out soon enough.

The house wasn't visible from the road. The narrow, tree-lined drive bent away from the road, and thick hedgerows protected the property from prying eyes. Fergus and Danny avoided the drive and walked on further down the road.

There were no immediate neighbouring properties, and after about a hundred metres Fergus said they should push their way through the bushes and make their approach from one side of the house. They stepped over a grass verge and a small ditch and began to ease their way through brambles and thorns. Every step brought a fresh soaking as the foliage showered them with rainwater. Danny smiled to himself. Now he knew why they hadn't changed into dry kit.