Andy McNab - Boy soldier

Danny simply nodded. They got out of the car, crossed the road and walked back to the MoD track. It was the closest manmade feature to the map reference so it made sense to think it might lead towards wherever Fergus was being held.

'We'll make the ERV five metres into the forest and twenty metres up the road from here,' said Danny, pointing in the direction he meant.

'The what?' asked Elena.

'Emergency rendezvous. If anything goes wrong, go to the-'

'Danny, I've told you,' said Eddie interrupting. 'I'm coming to find out what's there, that's all. If it all goes wrong you won't see my arse for dust, so there's no point in telling me about ERVs or ETAs or even ETs. I'm a coward, remember?'

There were fresh tyre marks in the mud where the track met the road. But as they moved into the darkness along the left-hand side of the track, the ground got harder and they lost sight of the tyre marks and almost everything else.

The black night engulfed them. Danny and Elena walked on either side of Eddie, clutching at the reporter as he stumbled with almost every step. 'Use your torch, Danny, I can't see a thing.'

'Stand still for a while and wait for your night vision to kick in. You stay with him, Elena.'

Before Eddie or Elena had the chance to stop him, Danny moved on. He stopped after twenty metres, then crouched down and listened. His own night vision was working now; he could make out individual trees on the other side of the track. As he tuned in to the area and heard the light breeze shifting the treetops, Eddie and Elena came hurrying up.

'I'm not here just to look after him,' complained Elena without looking at Eddie. 'Don't go wandering off like that.'

Beads of sweat were standing out on Eddie's forehead. He already looked ready to give up and turn back. But Danny wanted to hang onto the reporter now, realizing that if they did manage to rescue Fergus, Eddie was the one with a vehicle.

'I need your help, Eddie,' he said. 'Count your paces and tell me when you reach twelve hundred.'

'Twelve hundred? That'll take-'

'You too, Elena,' said Danny. 'So we're certain it's right.'

'But why?'

'We need to know how far we're travelling. One hundred and twenty paces is about a hundred metres, so twelve hundred is around a kilometre.'

'How do you know that?'

'Army RGB,' said Danny as he moved on. 'At least I got something useful from it.'

Eddie followed. 'One, two, three…'

The first twelve hundred paces took an hour. They moved in bounds, just as Fergus had taught Danny. The second kilometre took even longer. When Eddie breathlessly blurted out, 'Twelve hundred,' Danny saw that he looked totally exhausted.

'You're doing great, Eddie, we're nearly-'

He stopped mid sentence as he spotted vehicle lights on the track behind them. They were closing. Quickly. 'Vehicle. Off the track, quick!'

He pushed them both into the forest. Branches scratched at their faces and snagged on their clothes as the vehicle's headlights bounced off the trees and came closer. Danny fell into the leaf litter, pulling Eddie and Elena down with him.

The vehicle passed their hiding place and the trees around them turned an eerie red as the driver hit the brakes and turned left onto a smaller track. Danny lifted his head and watched the small car bounce away and then disappear.

'He's showing us the way. Must be going somewhere, Eddie. Less than a kilometre, I reckon.'

'A kilometre!'

'Oh, stop moaning!' said Elena as she stood up and brushed the leaf litter from her clothes. 'Just walk!'

Jimmy was at the wheel of the car. He'd been to an all-night Tesco to get more supplies. He hit the gear-stick pressel.

'That's Jimmy approaching the house.'

Brian was on stag, monitoring the surveillance devices protecting the compound.

'Roger that, Jimmy, I have you now.'

One of the screens in front of him showed a line drawing of the mud track leading to the house. Jimmy had driven over the first set of UGSs and set off the alarm. A second white light blinked on and off, followed by the third, as Jimmy got closer to the compound.

He stopped the car just after the third set of UGSs and switched off his lights. Then he drove slowly into the clear area and along the concrete track. He took his time, waiting for Brian to come out and unlock the gates.

Fran and Mick were also in the surveillance room. They'd moved on to sandwiches now that the supply of Pot Noodles was exhausted. They weren't particularly hungry just bored. Eating helped pass the time on a long, routine job like this.

Marcie Deveraux was alone in the room opposite. She knew she had to stay awake, but rest was important. She turned off the light, lay down on the camp bed and clasped her hands together behind her head. As she stared up into the darkness, Deveraux heard the door to the surveillance room open and then footsteps going up the stairs.

Fran had taken over on stag. Her first job was to check on Fergus. At the top of the stairs she unlocked the door, pushed it open and then smiled mockingly at the prisoner sprawled on the floor with his feet plas-ticuffed to the wooden pallet. 'Comfy?'

Fergus stared back defiantly as Fran walked into the room, casually removed her Glock 9mm from its holster and pointed it at the spot directly between his eyes. 'I'm looking forward to finishing you. It's always a pleasure to get rid of another drug trafficker.'

She touched her still bruised nose with the Glock's barrel and then checked that Fergus was securely cuffed to the pallet before going back to the door. 'We'll pick up the boy soon enough. Shame about him, but he'd probably turn out like you, anyway. It's in the blood, I reckon.' She grinned. 'You sure you've got nothing you want to tell the governor?'

Fergus made eye contact with her. 'Fincham set me up. He's the one who should be sitting here. He's the real-'

'Yeah, I was waiting for that one,' interrupted Fran. 'Now, you got anything sensible you want to say, or what?'

Fergus knew he was wasting his time. He looked away.

'Suit yourself, it's your funeral, although you won't exactly get a funeral.' She stepped out of the room, closed the door and re-locked it, leaving the key in the lock so that there was no chance of it getting lost.

Downstairs, Fran went outside and checked the padlock on the gate before walking a circuit of the fence line, looking for cuts. It was routine SOP at the start of a two-hour stag and she was soon back in the surveillance room, staring at the UGSs on the monitors.

The kettle was coming to the boil and Mick was spooning instant coffee into mugs lined up on the worktop. 'You want one, Fran?'

'Yeah,' she answered, turning away from the monitors. 'Oh, by the way, our friend upstairs reckons he's an innocent man and the governor's the one who should be in the frame.'

'Yeah, course he should,' said Mick as he poured the steaming water into the mugs. 'And you're the Queen of Hearts.'

Danny heard noises in the bushes ahead just as they completed another bound. He stopped, his eyes narrowing, trying to penetrate the darkness. Eddie was breathing too hard to hear a thing. He blundered into Danny. 'Sorry,' he said, far too loudly.

The noise from the bushes increased, as if someone was running away, and this time Eddie heard. 'What's that?'

'Ssshh,' breathed Elena, grabbing Eddie's arm.

'Just a deer,' said Danny. 'We scared it.'

Eddie wiped a hand across his sweating brow. 'Not half as much as it scared me.'

Danny knelt down on the track, tuning in again to the area, and his knee rested directly on top of a circular UGS buried just a few centimetres under the mud and leaf litter. Fortunately for Danny, it was calibrated to take the weight of a vehicle, and inside the house Fran took a sip of her brew and stared at the blank monitor.