Aggressor

1

The three of us clung to the top of the Bradley armoured fighting vehicle as it bucked and lurched over the churned-up ground. Exhaust fumes streamed from its rear grille and made us choke, but at least they were warm. The days out here might be hot, but the nights were freezing.

My right hand was clenched round an ice-cold grab handle near the turret. My left gripped the shoulder strap of my day sack. We’d flown three thousand miles to use this gear, and there was nothing to replace it if it got damaged. The whole job would have to be aborted and I would be severely in the shit.

Nightsun searchlights mounted on the four AFVs strafed the front of the target buildings. The other three were decoys; ours was the only one transporting a three-man SAS team. That was if we could all keep a grip on the thing.

As our driver took a sharp left towards the rear of the target, our Nightsun sliced a path across the night sky like a scene from the Blitz.

Charlie was team leader on this one, and wore a headset and boom mike to prove it. Connected to the comms box outside the AFV, it meant he could talk to the crew. His mouth was moving but I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. The roar of the engine and the clatter of the tracks put paid to that. He finished, pulled off the headset, and lobbed it onto the grille. He gave Half Arse and me a slap and the shout to stand by.

Seconds later, the AFV slowed, then came to a halt: our cue to jump. We scrambled down the sides, taking care our day sacks didn’t strike anything on the way.

The vehicle swivelled on its own axis, mud cascading from its tracks, then headed back the way we’d come.

I joined Charlie and Half Arse behind a couple of cars. They were obvious cover, but we’d only be here a few seconds, and if the Nightsuns had done their job, anybody watching from the building would have lost their night vision anyway.

We hugged the ground, looking, listening, tuning in.

Our AFV was now grinding along the other side of the building with its mates, Nightsuns working the front of the target. And now that they were a safe distance from our eardrums, the loudspeakers mounted on each vehicle began to broadcast a horrible, high-pitched noise like baby rabbits being slaughtered. They’d been doing that for days. I didn’t know how it was affecting the people inside the target, but it certainly made me crazy.

We were about fifty metres from the rear of the target. I checked Baby-G: about six hours till first light. I checked the gaffer tape holding my earpiece, and that the two throat-mike sensors were still in place.

Charlie was sorting out his own comms. When he’d finished taping his earpiece, he thumbed the pressle hanging from a wire attached to the lapel of his black corduroy bomber jacket, and spoke low and slow. ‘This is Team Alpha. We clear to move yet? Over.’ Brits found his thick Yorkshire accent hard enough to understand; fuck knows what the Americans at the other end would make of it.

He was talking to a P3 aircraft circling some twenty-five thousand feet above our heads. Bristling with thermal imaging equipment to warn us of any impending threat while we were on the job, it also carried an immensely powerful infrared torch. I checked that my one-inch square of luminous tape was still stuck on my shoulder. The aircraft’s IR beam was invisible to the naked eye, but the reflections off our squares would stick out like sore thumbs on their camera. If we were compromised and bodies poured out of the target to take us on, at least P3 would be able to direct the QRF [quick reaction force] to the right place.

The reply from the P3 came to my earpiece too. ‘Yep, that’s a free zone, Team Alpha, free zone.’

Charlie didn’t bother to voice a reply; he just gave two clicks on the pressle. Then he came alongside me and put his mouth right against my ear. ‘If I don’t make it, will you do something for me?’

I looked at him and nodded, then mouthed the question, ‘What?’

I felt the warmth of his breath on the side of my face. ‘Make sure Hazel gets that three quid you owe me. It’s part of my estate.’

He gave me the kind of grin that would have won him an audition with the Black and White Minstrels. It had been years since he’d subbed me for that fucking bacon sandwich, but the way he went on about it you’d have thought he’d paid off my mortgage.

He rolled away and began to crawl. He’d know that I was second in line, with Half Arse bringing up the rear. Half Arse also had personal comms, but his earpiece was just shoved into his jacket pocket. He was going to be the eyes and ears while Charlie and I worked on target.

The crawl was wet and muddy and my jeans and fleece were quickly soaked. I was beginning to wish I’d worn gloves and a couple of extra layers.

Like the other two, I kept my eyes on those parts of the target behind which the P3 couldn’t penetrate: the windows. The rabbit noise and searchlights should keep the occupants’ attention on the front of the target until we were done, but we’d freeze at the slightest movement, and hope we hadn’t been seen or heard.

‘You’ve got thirty to target, Team Alpha.’ P3 were trying to be helpful.

Torchlight flickered behind a curtain on the first-floor window. It was directed inwards, not out at us. It wasn’t a threat.

We carried on, and six minutes of slow crawling later we were where we needed to be.

2

The flaky white, weatherboarded exterior was only the first of three layers. The building plans showed there were likely to be another two behind it. One was tarpaper to prevent damp and help with insulation, and then there’d be the interior stud wall, which would have a finishing coat of either paint or paper, or both. None of which should be a problem for the sophisticated gear we were carrying.

As planned, we’d crawled to a point between two ground-floor windows. A utility box the size of a coal bunker was set against the wall. It was an ideal location for the stuff we were going to leave behind.

Fingers shielding the lens of his mini-Maglite, Charlie opened the utility box with a square lug key and had a quick look inside.

Half Arse had his pistol out; he kept his eyes on the windows and his ears everywhere else. He’d had a buttock shot away during an op a few years back, and right now I wondered if it meant his arse was only half as cold as mine. His wife wanted him to have an implant so he didn’t scare the kids when he took them swimming, but they weren’t available on the NHS, and he refused to go private. ‘I’m too tight-arsed’ was his standard joke. ‘Or rather, tight half-arsed…’ Nobody ever laughed. It wasn’t very funny, and nor was he.

We knew that everyone in the various Pods [tactical operations] would be watching the thermal and IR imagery of us at work, beamed down to them by the P3. We wanted to make sure it was a job well done; don’t mess with the best was the message we wanted to transmit — though right now it was the last thing any of us was worried about; personally, I just wanted to do the business and get away alive. This was my last job before I left the Regiment. It would be the mother of all ironies if I got dropped or injured now.

I eased my day sack off my back. A distant voice inside the building shouted out something but we ignored him. We’d only react if someone was actually shouting that they’d spotted us; otherwise, we’d be stopping and starting every five minutes. You just have to get on with it until you know there is a definite drama. That was what Half Arse was here for.

Charlie had worked out where he wanted to fix the device. He pressed a thumbnail into the wood at almost ground level and gave me a nod. I brought out a pyramid from my day sack, seven inches high and made of alloy. Instead of a peak, it had a hole, and at each of the four corners was a fixing lug.

Guided by the beam from Charlie’s Maglite, I positioned the pyramid so the hole was directly over his nail mark, and held it there while he put a battery-powered screwdriver to the first lug. Very slowly, very deliberately, the shaft of the screwdriver rotated. It took the best part of two minutes to screw it in tight. By the time the first three were in, my hands were almost numb.

A different voice shouted from inside. It was closer, but it wasn’t talking about us. He was complaining about the rabbit noise, and I couldn’t blame him.

The sweat on my back was starting to cool and I could feel fingers of wind fighting their way down my neck. At last, Charlie fixed the last lug and I gave the structure a wiggle left and right to test it was stable. He was the mechanic; I was the oily rag. The rest was up to him now.

He retrieved a drill bit half a metre long and seven millimetres in diameter from his day sack and threaded it carefully into the pyramid hole, oblivious to everything else that was going on.

He blew on his fingers to warm them, then eased the drill in further until it just touched the wood of the exterior wall. This kit couldn’t be worked by any old knuckle-dragger, which ruled me out. It called for a delicate touch and a steady hand. Charlie was the best of the best; he always said that if he hadn’t gone into this line of work, he’d have taken up brain surgery. Maybe he wasn’t joking; I saw him settle a bet once by turning one five-pound note into two with a razor blade. Back in Hereford, they called him the CEO of MOE [method of entry]. There wasn’t a security system in existence that he couldn’t defeat. And if there was, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. He’d get me to blow it up instead.

Next out was the power cable, connected to a lithium battery inside his day sack. Charlie plugged it into the pyramid. There was a moment’s delay as jaws inside the pyramid clamped round the bit, and then it began to turn, so slowly it almost seemed not to be moving. The only sound was a barely audible, low-frequency hum.

There was nothing we could do now but wait as it started to work its way quietly, slowly, methodically through an inch of wood, a sheet of tarpaper, and about half a centimetre of plasterboard. I moved against the wall to make myself as small a target as possible if anyone looked out of a window. My right hand lifted my fleece and rested on the grip of the pistol pancake-holstered on my jean belt. My left pulled the zipped-up front over my nose for warmth.

This kit worked on the same technology they used in neurosurgery; if you’re drilling through a skull it helps to be doing so with something that stops when it senses it’s about to hit the cranial membrane. Our one behaved the same way when it was just about to break through the final layer of paint or paper. And — so it left no sign — it automatically collected the debris and dust as it went.

Charlie disconnected the power and pulled out the bit, then took out a fibre-optic rod with a light on the end. He moved it down through the pyramid, just to make sure he wasn’t about to break through the stud wall. Everything seemed to be fine. He removed the fibre optic, reinserted the drill, and reconnected the power. The gentle hum resumed.

It moved quicker as it hit the tarpaper, then slowed again as it encountered the plasterboard. Charlie stopped it again and repeated the operation with the fibre optic.

I looked over at Half Arse. He was lying on his back with his feet nearest the wall, his pistol resting on his chest, pointing up at the first-floor windows. He must have been freezing his arse off — or what was left of it. I thought about the Americans in the Pods, drinking coffee and smoking cigars while they watched our progress. Most of them were probably wondering why the fuck we didn’t get a move on.

It took nearly an hour before the drill stopped turning for the third and final time. Charlie did his trick with the fibre optic again and gave us a thumbs-up. He removed the drill bit, put the screwdriver to the first lug, and began to turn it anticlockwise.

When he’d removed the pyramid, Charlie dug out the microphone. It too was attached to a fibre-optic cable, so it could be put into position correctly.

I stowed the gear carefully, bit by bit, in my day sack. No point rushing it and making noise.

With a flourish, Charlie connected the microphone to the lithium battery and laid a metre-long wire antenna on the ground.

As soon as the power was switched on, there was squelch in my earpiece. The signal was beamed to the Pods and then bounced back to us. We didn’t want to have to get on the net to check that we’d done the business.

I heard the microphone rustle as Charlie fed it gently into the freshly drilled hole. He stopped now and again, eased it back a fraction, then pushed it through a bit more. As it got closer to the membrane, I could hear a woman murmuring to her children, and a man moaning in agony. It must have been the one who’d taken a round in the stomach during the first attack.

It was almost time to leave. Charlie closed and relocked the utilities box as I dug the wire into the earth and smoothed it over. He did a quick final sweep of the area with his shielded Maglite, and we got rid of a couple of footprints. Then we started to crawl back to RV [rendezvous] with the Bradley.

Voices echoed in my earpiece as we went; a man mumbled passages from the Bible; a child whimpered and pleaded for a drink of water.

We had done our bit.

Now it was time to hand our toys over to the Americans.

3

The baby rabbits screamed all night long. It was close to impossible for us to sleep — and we were six hundred metres from the action. Fuck knows what it must have been like for the hundred-odd men, women and children on the receiving end of their relentless squeals, taped on a loop and amplified a thousand times through the AFVs’ loudspeakers.

It was still dark. I unzipped my sleeping bag just enough to slide my arm out into the cold. I tilted my wrist close to my face and pressed the illumination button on Baby-G. It was 5.38 a.m.

‘Day fifty-one of the siege of Mount Carmel.’ I kicked the bag next to me. ‘Welcome to another day in paradise.’

Anthony stirred. ‘They still playing the same bloody record?’ It was strange hearing him swear in perfect Oxford English.

‘Why, mate? You got any requests?’

‘Yes.’ His head emerged. ‘Bloody get me out of here.’

‘I don’t think I know that one.’

It didn’t get a laugh.

‘What time is it?’

‘Half-five, mate. Brew?’

He groaned as he adjusted position. Tony wasn’t used to sleeping hard. He belonged in a freshly starched white coat, back at his lab, twiddling test tubes over Bunsen burners, not roughing it alongside guys like me, teeth unbrushed so long they’d grown fur, and socks the consistency of cardboard.

‘The papers were calling it the siege of Mount Apocalypse yesterday,’ Anthony said. ‘Lambs to the slaughter, more like.’ It came from the heart. He wasn’t at all happy about what was happening here.

Once we’d fixed the listening devices, nobody was interested in the Brits who’d been sent to Waco to ‘observe and advise’. We were surplus to requirements. After a three-day consultation with Hereford, who’d had a consultation with the FCO, who’d spoken to the embassy in Washington, who’d spoken to whoever, Charlie and Half Arse had flown back to the UK. I was told to stay and keep an eye on Tony. The Americans might still want to use the box of tricks he’d brought along.

I rolled over and fired up our small camping gas stove, then reached for the kettle. When it came to home comforts, that was pretty much it. There wasn’t a toothbrush in sight, which probably explained why the Yanks kept their distance.

I looked through one of the bullet holes in the side of the cattle trailer that had been our home for the last five days. The darkness of the Texas prairie was criss-crossed by searchlight beams. The AFVs circled the target buildings like Indians around a wagon train, Nightsuns bouncing wildly. The psyops guys were still making life a living hell for those trapped inside. The media had got it right. We were trapped on the set of Apocalypse Now.

The compound, as the Feds were calling the Branch Davidians’ hangout, comprised a mishmash of wooden-framed buildings, two three-storey blocks and a large rectangular water tower. In anyone else’s language, it would have been described as a religious community, but that wouldn’t have suited the FBI. The last thing they wanted was for this operation to smack of persecution, so compound it was.

There’s a ten-day rule when it comes to sieges; if you’ve not resolved the situation by then, the shit has really hit the fan. And we were pushing the envelope five times over. Something had to happen soon. The administration wasn’t looking too clever as it was; with every new day that passed, things just got a whole lot worse.

The ear-piercing, gut-wrenching screams suddenly stopped. The silence was deafening. I peered through the bullet hole. Three or four AFVs were clustered near the car park. Intelligence from ex-members of the cult had suggested that since storage space inside the buildings was at a premium, a lot of them kept their belongings in the boots of their vehicles.

The first AFV lurched forward, ploughed through the fence and kept straight on going. I gave Tony another nudge. ‘Fucking hell, look at this.’

Tony sat up.

‘They’re crushing all the cars and buses.’

‘What the hell are they trying to do?’

‘Make friends and influence people, I guess.’

We watched the demolition derby while the water boiled.

4

As soon as the last vehicle was flattened, the AFVs spread out again. They started to circle, the Davidians’ fresh laundry embedded in their tracks. Almost immediately, the screams of the animals boomed out again from their loudspeakers.

People were on the move outside our trailer, making their way to and from the array of shower cubicles, toilets and food wagons that had sprung up on our patch of the seventy-seven-acre tented city. An army may march on its stomach, but US law enforcement drives there in a stretch limo and gets paid overtime.

There was no shortage of bodies to be catered for. SWAT teams, FBI hostage rescue teams, federal marshals, local sheriffs; the place was teeming with them. No fewer than four Pods were sprinkled around the compound. Alpha Pod was right next door to our trailer; the other three had their own command set-up, and, as far as we could make out, were doing their own thing. There were more chiefs than Indians on this prairie, that was for sure, and nobody seemed to be in overall charge. To make matters worse, they all wanted to be, and every man and his dog was clearly itching to fire up the biggest and ugliest military toys they could get their hands on.

This operation had all the makings of a weapons-grade gangfuck, and there was a rock-festival-sized audience gathering to witness it. Hordes of shiny, aluminium-skinned Airstreams, clapped-out Winnebagos and bog-standard pickups lined the road the far side of the cordon. The rubberneckers were coming from miles around for a good day out, sitting on their roofs, clutching their binos, enjoying the fun. There was even a funfair, and stall upon stall selling everything from hotdogs and camping gas stoves to Davidians: 4, ATF: 0 emblazoned T-shirts [Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Bureau of].

This was certainly cowboy country, in more ways than one. Waco was about a hundred miles south of Dallas, and home to the Texas Rangers’ museum. Everybody I’d seen at the funfair seemed to be wearing a Stetson. Everybody apart from the Ku Klux Klan, that is. They’d turned up three days ago, offering the FBI their help getting in there and killing all them drug-taking, cult-loving child molesters.

Tony and I sank back down and finished off our brews while I got the kettle on for the next round. It was the highlight of the day.

Muffled speech and laughter came and went along the outside of the trailer. I smelled cigarette smoke. The cocking of weapons and ripping of body-armour Velcro signalled the change of shift. By my reckoning there were at least three hundred police officers on-site, with vehicles to match. Most of them were in BDUs [United States Army battledress], and carrying enough weaponry to see off a small invasion.

I also knew that the Combat Applications Group — Delta Force — had a team here somewhere. Delta had been modelled on the same squadron and doctrine set-up as the Special Air Service in the 1970s. They were probably doing much the same as we were, stuck at one of the Pods, being told jack shit about what was going on and sleeping rough in a trailer. I hoped so, anyway.

We all knew that it was illegal for the military to act against US citizens. The Posse Comitatus Act banned it from domestic law enforcement, and ‘domestic’ included a three-mile stretch of territorial water. There was only one exception to the rule: President Clinton had signed a waiver allowing law officers on drugs interdiction operations to use military vehicles and personnel to combat the forces ranged against them. In other words, the ATF and FBI had a Get Out Of Jail Free card, and judging by the Abrams tank parked up across the way, it looked like they intended to play it at the first available opportunity.

David Koresh and his fellow Bible-bashers couldn’t have known what they were letting themselves in for when they resisted the original attack by the ATF almost two months earlier.

5

The water boiled. I tipped Nescafé into two mugs and poured. You couldn’t move for catering wagons round here, but I didn’t fancy joining the breakfast queue now the night shift was over. Apart from anything else, it meant venturing out into the cold, and I liked to put that off until the sun came up.

I hung on to Tony’s brew as he faffed about, trying to unzip. He rubbed his eyes and groped around for his glasses in the glow from the stove. He was all right, I supposed. He was thirty-something, with the kind of nose that made it look like his forefathers came from Easter Island. His hair was brown, and style-wise he’d gone for mad professor. Either he didn’t have any idea what he looked like or, more likely, he just didn’t care; because he was one, his head so full of chemical formulae he didn’t seem to know what day it was.

There were nine thousand or so eggheads employed by DERA [Defence Evaluation and Research Agency], and Tony was one of them. You didn’t ask these guys at exactly which of the eighty or so establishments up and down the UK they worked, but I was pretty sure, given why he was here, that he wouldn’t be a complete stranger to the germ warfare laboratories at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

I’d looked after boffins like him before, holding their hand in hostile environments, or escorting them into premises neither of us should really have been in, and I tended to just let them get on with whatever they had to do. The less I knew, the less shit I could be in if things went pear-shaped. These sorts of jobs always tended to come back and kick you in the bollocks. But one thing always puzzled me: Tony and his mates had brains the size of hot-air balloons, and spent their whole lives grappling with the secrets of the universe — so how come they couldn’t even get a decent brew on?

The RAF had flown a big container in with us to Fort Hood, then had it trucked on-site, and Tony carried the keys. He seemed pretty much a pacifist, so maybe it just contained enough fairy dust to make everybody dance out of the building, but I doubted it. The FBI had been pretty keen to have access to Charlie’s siege surveillance devices, but the inside of Tony’s head was what they really wanted. His business was advanced gases; he seemed to be on first-name terms with every molecule on the planet. What’s more, he knew how to mix them so precisely that they killed, immobilized, or merely incapacitated you to the point where you were still able to crawl.

A flurry of shouted instructions belted out of Alpha Pod’s command tent. Special Agent Jim D. ‘Call Me Buster’ Bastendorf was tuning up for his morning gobbing-off session to the new shift commanders, and as usual making everything sound like a bollocking.

Bastendorf really did like everyone to call him Buster, but it took us no time at all to christen him Deaf Bastard, then, because it was less of a mouthful, Bastard for short.

Bastard was a Texan and that meant everything — his shoulders, arms, hands and, most of all, his stomach — was bigger than it needed to be. It would have done him no harm at all to stay away from the two-pound T-bones after Christmas. He had a severe crew cut and a heavily waxed Kaiser Wilhelm moustache. He kept on curling the ends, as if letting them droop would be a sign of weakness. Yessirree, Jim D. Bastendorf knew exactly what his mission was: to kick ass, bust heads, solve the problem.

Everything was a battle for this man; every minute of every day was a fight he had to win. His jaws worked non-stop on chewing tobacco. Every quarter of an hour he’d gob a mouthful of thick, black, saliva-covered crap into a polystyrene cup, trawl out another wad from a tin in his back pocket, and start the whole process again.

His problem with us began with Tony’s accent. Whenever Tony asked a question or tried to offer some input, he just looked blank, and took to referring to him as ‘that Limey fag in the trailer’ who ‘don’t know shit from Shinola’. I was this other Brit waste of space who kept asking damn-fool questions: ‘What about this? What about that? Do you really think that keeping these guys awake 24/7 is going to get them to come out?’

When it came down to it, he didn’t have a clue what we were doing here. Our brief was short and to the point. So long as we kept out of his way, had the correct little blue passes hanging from our necks at all times, and shared his view that we’d all been floundering helplessly till he rode over the hill like the Fifth Cavalry, we could stay here for ever, for all he cared — which was just fine by me, because I didn’t care much either. If Bastard didn’t want to listen, it wasn’t my problem. The Davidians’ water supply had been fucked up, and sooner or later they’d get hungry or thirsty or bored. They’d come out eventually, so I’d just keep getting the kettle on for Tony and me until the white flags started appearing.

Bastard roared with laughter. People were shouting instructions to get over to the command post. Something was happening.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Bastard boomed. ‘Check this out — showtime!’

I unzipped my bag and got to my feet. There was another sound above the scream of rabbits and screech of tank tracks. Bastard had thrown a switch so that his mates could listen in on the conversation between the negotiators and the Bible-bashers.

Achild of no more than five was on the phone inside the compound. I could hear muffled crying in the background. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ her small voice asked.

6

The negotiator was on a US Air Force base miles away — another bad tactic. He spoke gently, as Bastard’s boys in the command tent shrieked and whistled. ‘No, honey, no-one is coming to kill you.’

‘You sure? The tanks are still outside…’

‘The tanks won’t hurt you, honey.’

Another, male voice took over in the compound. ‘Why are you letting your guys drop their pants at our women?’ He was going apeshit. ‘These are decent women in here; you know that’s not the way to go. Why should we trust you?’

Bastard roared, ‘About time them bitches saw some prime ass!’

From the sound of it, this got his boys’ vote. I bet they were mooning at the speaker.

I exchanged a glance with Tony, who’d been staring at his coffee. We both listened as the negotiator tried to come back with a reasonable response. ‘You know what these guys are like; you know the ones who fly the helicopters or drive the tanks, they haven’t got the same mindset as us. I’ll try and do something about it, OK?’

Bastard guffawed. ‘Fuck that, and fuck you too, Mr Mindset! You just keep on talking; leave the ass-kicking to the big boys.’

There was a fresh burst of applause. I could picture the big boys shrugging off their pants again, waving their arses at the speaker.

I took a sip of my brew. Whatever the negotiator said, it didn’t look good for Koresh and his crew. The ATF had ignored his invitation to come in and inspect the place for illegal weapons and whatever else they thought the Davidians had up their sleeves, and instead had mounted a full-scale armed operation.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but it just so happened that the ATF were losing credibility in Washington right now, and it was budget time. They clearly wanted to put on a bit of a display — they’d invited the media along, and given them ringside seats. They’d even got their own cameras rolling, in case the newshounds missed any of the action.

The Branch Davidians must have known something was up when they clocked the film crews setting up shop. Their suspicions would have been confirmed when helicopters started swooping round the rear of the compound, partly to draw their attention away from the cattle trailers full of armed ATF agents headed for the front door, partly so the US public could see their tax dollars on the screen.

The Davidians returned fire, as they were entitled to do under American law. They even called 911 to tell the police they were being attacked, and begged for help.

The gun battle lasted for an hour, the longest in American law enforcement history. At the end of it, four ATF agents lay dead, with another sixteen wounded. When little brother gets his arse kicked, big brother comes to sort it out. The FBI took over. From that moment on, the Branch Davidians were doomed. This was one movie that wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

Tony took a sip of coffee and looked at me sadly as he listened to the conversation that followed.

The Davidians wanted water…

The negotiators said they wanted to help out, but they just couldn’t oblige. Their hands were tied.

People were starting to die of thirst here…

It was possible the FBI might be able to do something if some of the Davidians came out and gave themselves up, as a token of goodwill. How did that sound?

Tony was totally out of his depth here. He didn’t like the sound of the AFVs, and he didn’t like the shouting that came as part of the law enforcement package. He particularly didn’t like being so near things that went bang. He’d have given anything right now to be tucked away in that lab of his, feeding laughing gas to Roland Rat or whatever the fuck it was they did there. He gave me a brave smile. ‘Another day, another dollar, eh?’

‘Easier said than done, mate.’ I tried to sound upbeat for him. ‘Best not to worry about what you can’t change. It’ll give you a headache.’

Tony looked away, staring sightlessly through the side of the trailer as Bastendorf’s audience got right on with enjoying the show.

7

I didn’t particularly care which way this thing panned out. I was just looking forward to getting back to Hereford and the squadron. I was out of the Regiment in a couple of months’ time and needed to sort a few things. Not that I had much to organize. The Firm [Secret Intelligence Service] were going to do everything for me, sort out bank accounts, take control of my life.

Islamic fundamentalists had been on a slaughtering frenzy in Algeria ever since the army seized power in 1992. They’d unleashed a fierce terrorist campaign against a broad spectrum of civilian targets, including secular opposition leaders, journalists, artists, academics, and foreigners — especially oil industry foreigners.

A job looking after oilmen and rigs came up; the wages were three times what I was on, so there wasn’t much thinking involved. Why get out of the Regiment in five years’ time and start doing the same job? Why not start right away? I was out in five years anyway, whether I liked it or not. The army had wiped my arse for me ever since I’d joined at sixteen. They’d only used three sheets at a time — one up, one down, one to shine — but I’d still been wondering what it would be like to have to stand on my own two feet. And now I didn’t have to worry.

I handed in my notice and got approached by the Firm a week later. I still wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t matter. It meant not having to fill in tax forms or pay rent. And I’d find out what they wanted me for soon enough.

I was just about to suggest a stroll to the canteen to see if the queue had gone down when a series of loud crashes came from the compound.

‘What are you doing? You’re attacking the children, what about the children?’

The negotiator went straight into monotone. Bastard and his crew quit their banter to listen. ‘Do not open fire. This is not an assault. We will not be entering the building. I repeat, do not open fire. This is not an assault.’

The line went dead. Almost at once, the loudspeakers on the armoured vehicles began to blare, in the same monotone as the negotiator, ‘This stand-off is over, do not fire any weapons. This is not an assault. This is not an assault, do not fire any weapons.’

Tony and I put down our brews and ran to the back of the cattle trailer to get a better view. Three combat engineer vehicles, tracked, armoured monsters with big battering rams out in front, were rumbling around the compound. One pushed straight through the wall like a finger through wet paper.

Searchlights and Nightsuns jerked around the target. Another CEV forced its ram into the far corner of the building and stopped.

‘Oh my God, oh my God…’ Tony couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. The searchlights were still dancing like dervishes as the third CEV half disappeared through a wall.

‘This is not an attack,’ the loudspeakers barked. ‘Do not open fire.’

Tony couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘If this isn’t an attack, then what the hell is it? Look, Nick, look…’

I was looking, along with close on two hundred law enforcers standing on the roof of every vehicle, trying to get a better view. Some of them even had their flash cameras out, getting a few snaps for the folks back home.

Tony scrambled over the trailer gate like an uncoordinated child. He hit the ground and started running towards Alpha Pod.

I followed. The structure was kept upright by air forced through inflatable tubes in the frames. A generator chugged away just outside. This being an American command post, there was also air conditioning. Warm air hit our faces. There was a strong smell of coffee. It was a smoke-free area, and there were signs up to say so. Health and safety initiatives in a war zone were always good to see.

Every table was groaning with TV monitors and computers. Cables trailed across the floor. Radio operators were hunched speechlessly over their sets. Everyone had their eyes glued to the screens.

The monitors showed all elevations of the target, apart from the rear. The two screens that had been covering the back were now just black and flickering. Two screens displayed aerial views from P3 cameras still circling at twenty-five thousand feet. The IR and thermal images looked like black and white negatives. Bright white light showed the heat coming from the exhaust of the CEV at the back of the building, then white flames as the driver changed gear before ramming into it.

Bastard stood in front of the screens, and he liked what he saw. ‘Get some!’ he yelled at the screen. He muttered a few asides to his cronies and gobbed baccy juice into his cup. The crew around him added their cheers.

‘Yo, Momma!’

Thirty seconds later, the vehicle reversed.

‘Hey, Koresh, how you like that new air freshener?’

‘Y’all find that tank’s ass stinks more than ours!’

I looked at Tony. ‘Gas?’

‘They’re injecting like mosquitoes.’

The FBI’s patience had run out. They’d gas them and then round them up as they staggered out, coughing and spluttering, fluids dribbling from every orifice. Next stop would be the back of a wagon or an ambulance, and downtown to the ER before they got arrested.

‘Good news.’ I grinned at Tony. ‘That’s you and me on a plane home.’

But Tony wasn’t smiling. He strode up to Bastard. ‘What gas are you using?’

Bastard just kept on staring at the screens. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Dunno, old bean. Just gas, I guess.’

Tony was flapping, looking around at the room for some kind of moral support. He didn’t receive it. A couple of Bastendorf’s men started to smirk, sensing fun. Tony pointed to the monitors as another CEV crashed into the compound. ‘Have they got respirators in there? What about the children? In those confined spaces you’re going to kill them! Why aren’t they already coming out?’

Bastard ignored him. Outside, the symphony of slaughtered animals returned and another CEV embedded itself in the building. It stayed put for about twenty seconds and then pulled out. Another mosquito injecting its poison.

Bastard just stood there, glued to the screens.

Tony grabbed his shoulder and spun him round so their faces were only inches apart. ‘This is going to kill them, do you not understand?’ His voice was choked with emotion. ‘They’re all going to die!’

Bastard sneered. ‘Not your party, son. Get out of my face, I got work to do.’

No-one else spoke.

I was standing in the doorway. First light was just cracking; visibility had improved.

A cheer went up from the onlookers at the edge of the cordon.

I scanned the perimeter, and the penny dropped.

Where were the ambulances to treat the casualties? Where were the reception parties to process the prisoners? Where were the wagons to take them away? Why were all these guys watching the attack, rather than being part of it?

8

I turned back. Bastard had reached breaking point. ‘Get the fuck outta here, faggot! What the fuck you Brits doing here anyway?’

Bastard lifted his spade-sized right hand and pushed against Tony’s face. Tony wasn’t made for hard sleeping, and he wasn’t built to take a slapping either. He reeled back and toppled onto one of the radio operators. The guy stood up but he wasn’t going to help. This was the boss’s business.

I took three quick strides and got in between them. The command tent fell silent and the rabbits and the rumble of the CEVs filled the space. Bastard didn’t have to say anything. His intentions were written all over his face. Tony was spread across the radio operator’s table and was sliding towards the ground.

‘I’ll take him away. I’m sorry, he’s not used to seeing this sort of thing. I’ll get him out of the way for you.’ I raised my hand in conciliation.

But Bastard was feeling too feisty to back off. He poked me in the chest. ‘Who the fuck are you anyway? Another fag Brit?’

I was here to look after the talent. I stood my ground. Tony’s shoulders rubbed against my legs as he tried to get up.

I put out my hand and touched Bastard’s jacket. His chest was rigid; the fucker had body armour on. I glanced right and left to see if I could sense how much support he’d be getting. The answer seemed to be plenty.

There was no way I could win this. Bastard was a big old boy, and his mates would pile in the moment anything kicked off. If the two of us had a day of reckoning, it wasn’t today.

‘We’ll go now.’ My eyes were locked on his. ‘This isn’t his thing.’

One of the guys in the tent came up and put his hand on Bastard’s shoulder. ‘It’s not worth it, Buster. These guys were sent here to help. Special relationship, right…’

Bastard’s jaw jutted as he returned my stare, weighing his options. His eyes never left mine. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel.

I guided Tony out of the tent but he didn’t come willingly. He still wanted answers.

The light was good enough to see the US flag fluttering from the antenna of one of the CEVs as it manoeuvred round the compound. It wasn’t the only Stars and Stripes flying. I wondered if any of them had noticed the much bigger one hanging from the Davidians’ own pole.

The armoured vehicles had churned up the ground so much round the target it looked like the Somme. Litter from crushed wheelie bins was scattered by the strengthening wind.

I had my arm round Tony’s shoulder, guiding him back to the trailer. But he didn’t want to go. ‘I’ve got to check something.’

‘What can we do? There’s—’

Tony pulled free and started to run. The steel container flown in by the RAF was about two hundred metres away.

I set off after him. It wouldn’t hurt. If nothing else, it took him two hundred metres further away from Alpha Pod.

As we approached the container, I could see it had sunk an inch or two into the ground under its own weight. When we got closer, I could see the two back doors had carved an arc in the soft ground where they’d been pulled open. The padlock had been cut.

Tony was almost hyperventilating with rage. ‘They had no right, Nick. You know the deal. They were only to take it after consultation. In the name of God, Nick, what are they doing?’

I looked inside. Several of the half-size oil drums were missing. The gas inside was under such pressure, Tony had told me, that it was solid. When the seals were removed, it degraded into fine particles, which could then be pumped into a building under pressure.

He leaned against the container as if he’d taken a punch in the gut. I hadn’t noticed until then, but the animal screams had stopped. The only sounds were the rattling of tank tracks and Nancy Sinatra singing ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’.

Wind gusted off the prairie as I shut the container doors.

Another roar of approval went up from the spectators. Tony’s eyes followed a flurry of activity alongside several 4x4s on the track to the outer cordon. Binos raised, the thrill-seekers were pulsating with excitement as they munched on their fresh breakfast muffins. In an hour or two the funfair would start up again, and the novelty stalls would churn out more Davidians: 4, ATF: 0 T-shirts. But by then the scoreline would be well out of date.

I leaned against the container with Tony. Police in body armour, M16s over the shoulder, milled around with cups of coffee and egg rolls, eager to get a good view.

Tony shook his head in disbelief. His eyes welled with tears. ‘They’re going to die in there, Nick. They won’t be coming out. Some of the children are probably dead already. We must stop it. Who do we see? Who do we call? This is madness!’

I turned my head. ‘We’re not going to stop anything, mate. Look at this lot.’ The BDU-clad bodies took more pictures and cheered Nancy’s every word. ‘You’re flogging a dead horse, mate.’

The tears started to roll down his cheek. ‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘What the fuck do you think is happening? Look at those wagons.’ I pointed at the CEVs rampaging round the compound. ‘And fuck knows what’s going on round the back. Why do you think the lines have been cut? There’s an agenda, mate. They want the fuckers dead.’

His jaw dropped. Tony didn’t share the Rambo mindset of those in the helicopters and tanks. He invented toys for them to play with, but I could see he wasn’t used to joining in the game.

‘Look, the people on the ground here aren’t the decision-makers. That’s way above their pay scale. They’re just having fun doing it. They got the go from way up, mate. And you can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn’t touch this gas of yours unless the UK said they could. They’ve just fucked you off the plan now they’ve got your gear.’

‘But it’s women and children in there. They’re killing them! Someone must do something!’

I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from bouncing up and down. I also wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to run off again and try to do something that I wouldn’t be able to reverse him out of. ‘Listen. Ever since this thing kicked off, Koresh and the rest of them have been made to sound like the devil’s disciples. Think of it in Bastard’s terms. It’s a black and white world, and these are the bad guys.’

Tony’s head was in his hands, and his shoulders had started to shake.

‘I’ll go and get a brew on.’ I let go and patted his shoulder. ‘Coffee?’

What else was there to say?

9

By eleven o’clock it was getting pretty hot on my vantage point on top of the cattle trailer. I’d fetched Tony several brews, but last time I looked he hadn’t touched any of them. He still had his arse planted in the mud and his back slumped against the container.

I took off my jacket and pulled up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. The wind had picked up, blowing tumbleweed across the heat haze between us and the target. The way things were going round here, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see Clint Eastwood ride into shot.

Still no-one had come out of the buildings. Either they’d all been killed by the gas, or they’d killed themselves rather than surrender, or were being kept inside by Koresh. I wondered what had been going on round the back. I hadn’t seen anything, but I knew automatic gunfire when I heard it. Our guys, their guys, or both? Who knew? At this stage of the day, if they wanted to drop each other it was up to them. I just wanted this to be over and done with so we could pack up and go home. Maybe I’d buy myself a T-shirt on the way out.

I looked back towards the container to check on Tony. He was still there, and still very much in his own little world. The urgent roar of a CEV engine pulled me back towards the compound. It was making another entry into the building, and this time the monotone had replaced Nancy Sinatra. ‘This is not an attack. Do not open fire.’ They seemed to think that if they repeated the message often enough, we’d all start to believe it.

The police and federal marshals’ day shift had clocked on hours ago, but the overnight guys had hung around to watch the finale and they were starting to get a little bored now. If Tony was right, most of the Davidians were dead. So why weren’t the FBI masking up teams and sending them in to look for survivors? I didn’t have much sympathy for the adults, but the kids hadn’t asked to be there.

An angry yell came from near the command tent. I jumped to my feet to get a better view.

Tony and Bastard were squaring up to each other. Tony was almost jumping up at Bastard’s face, pushing him back with his hands as the FBI man tried to pass. A group had gathered. But I knew none of them was going to intervene. Bastard’s body language said he was going to take care of this piece of business himself.

10

I jumped off the trailer and ran towards them. Tony was certainly making me earn my money today. I barged though the gathering crowd.

‘Tony, calm down, mate. It’s all right.’

His head didn’t move. His eyes, red and swollen, were still fixed on Bastard.

‘It’s not all right.’ He jerked a finger over at the buildings. ‘Do you know what’s gone on over there? Do you?’

I was about to answer when I realized it wasn’t me he was talking to. ‘They will have died horrendously. That gas is the same stuff they use on death row. Did you know that?’

Bastard couldn’t be bothered to answer, but Tony wasn’t going to give him the chance. ‘Do you know why they strap men down before they press the button?’

There wasn’t a flicker in Bastard’s eyes. But everybody else’s looked at Tony for the answer.

‘Because it makes the muscles contract so violently they break every bone in the victim’s body. And that’s what’s happening to the women and children in there!’

Bastard stared blankly into Tony’s eyes. ‘Hey, we’re all just here to get the job done. What’s your fucking problem?’

Tony took a step closer. ‘I’ll tell you what my problem is. The space is too confined. You’re killing them!’

Bastard no longer bothered to put the brakes on the smile that was spreading across his face. He just turned to me, and when he spoke it was so calm it was scary. ‘Tell your fag friend that we are dealing with some very bad people here. They are religious fanatics who’ve stockpiled—’

‘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.