Aggressor

1

The terminal was heaving with passengers waiting for international flights, and every single one of them had been delayed.

It was 10.09 on a Sunday; only a matter of time before the Audi would be discovered. Even in Georgia, bloodstained seats and a shot-out window must be a curiosity.

Our flight to Vienna should have taken off at 10.30, but we weren’t even being allowed to check in. There was only one departure gate, and only enough room airside for one planeload of passengers.

We’d covered our tracks as effectively as we could, but that didn’t stop me feeling uncomfortable. Red Eyes and his mate hadn’t done us any favours when they’d ripped our masks off, and it wouldn’t take Inspector Morse to link us to Baz’s Audi and the bodies in his driveway. I just wanted to get the fuck out of here. Freedom felt so close I could spit at it, but we were still the wrong side of the glass partition.

I sat by the garden sheds across the road from the terminal. At least the benches were dry; the sun had done its stuff, and now peeped intermittently through the banks of slow-moving cloud.

A lot of us had moved out here to escape the crush, and the taxi drivers were really pissed off about it. They didn’t want to share their world with a load of foreigners. The shed owners weren’t too happy about it, either. Each of them sat behind their identical chocolate- and gum-laden counters, making it very clear that the portable black-and-white TV on the shelf behind them was a great deal more appealing than the potential customers in front.

A bored-looking anchorwoman with big black hair was presenting a news programme on all three screens. It was obviously another slow day at the network. We were treated to endless vistas of grand buildings, or lingering shots of Georgian soldiers in US BDUs, with Richard the Lionheart insignia stuck all over them, sitting purposefully in the back of trucks, or running courageously up and down hills.

We’d made it to the hotel just before four. The kit had stayed with the body in the boot. We had to walk back into the city clean, just in case a curious blue-and-white wanted to know what we were lugging about this time of the morning. Charlie’s jumper and the weapon went down an open manhole that no man or beast in their right mind would consider even going near, then we’d played a couple of drunken arseholes back from a night on the piss, jackets inside out and tied round our waists to cover the worst of the blood and mud. As it turned out, nobody raised an eyebrow. It was just another Saturday night in downtown Tbilisi.

I’d retrieved my card from behind the cistern, had a shit, shave and shower, then headed for Charlie’s room with my old clothes under my arm to spend a little quality time covering our tracks. I pulled the CTR tape from its casing and burned it, with the help of the hotel’s complimentary matches, and flushed the ashes down the toilet. Even our cell phones got the good news from my boot heel after a wipe-down to dispose of prints. We’d come into this country sterile, and we had to leave the same way.

The Marriott tape stayed with us; it was just too valuable to lose control of. There was a world of potential shit between us and Brisbane, and we needed to keep as much bargaining power to hand as we could.

After enough room-service breakfast to feed a couple of Charlie’s horses, we binned our clothes in the kitchen skips behind the hotel, along with the remains of the camcorder. The tape was in my new, oil-worker chic, dark blue Rohan trousers, and I had slipped the first ten pages of the document in Baz’s safe inside a magazine, in the pocket of my new khaki jacket. Charlie, waiting in the terminal, had the other half. He was going to come out and buy something from the shop when it was time to leave. That would be my signal to follow him back in.

I felt sorry for the old fucker. Once such a strong, solid, dependable performer, and now so screwed around by disease that he was finding it hard to grip anything firmly for more than five minutes. I could only begin to imagine his frustration. Just like Ali — king of the world one minute, a wreck the next. But unlike Ali, Charlie had a half-empty wallet into the bargain.

I had been thinking about that wallet a lot since this morning. Instead of keeping the papers as insurance, maybe we should cut a deal.

I felt a call to Crazy Dave from Vienna coming on. I’d persuade him to put us in touch with whoever the fuck had dreamed up this job, and give them the chance to buy the papers for the rest of Charlie’s two hundred grand.

As a bonus, I’d try and resist the temptation to rip their heads off for forgetting to mention that we’d be sharing house-room with a couple of maniac jewel thieves, and a graveyard with a machete-wielding cousin of the Incredible Hulk. We’d keep the two tapes of Whitewall and a copy of the papers as a little memento of our Georgian adventure, in case they changed their minds later, or suddenly found themselves in the mood to give us 200K’s worth of pain.

I didn’t have too many illusions about Whitewall. He was probably just as expendable as we were, and they’d bin him as easily as they’d planned to bin Charlie. But at least we had something up our sleeves that he wouldn’t want to become regular Sunday afternoon family viewing.

I suddenly realized that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t give a fuck about the actual money. I wanted it for Charlie and Hazel’s sake, of course, and because I never liked the idea of being turned over, but that was it. The thing I was really looking forward to was calling Silky. I needed to hear her voice again.

But I didn’t fancy explaining to either of the girls that we’d be coming back via Hereford — that we had to see an old mate, and would therefore be a day or two later than we’d promised — so I decided to leave that bit of the conversation to Charlie.

2

Next time I looked at my watch it was 11.05. I was slouched over an espresso thick enough to tar a road, watching a Georgian celebrity chef do something interesting with an onion and a couple of oxen.

The delay was beginning to worry me. Once Baz’s Audi was found with a present in the boot, the police would be swarming all over the house, trying to work out how Father Christmas had dropped by there as well. Or it could be the other way round. Whatever, it didn’t matter which way this nightmare unfolded. If there was any CCTV footage in the can, it wouldn’t be long before they were huddled round a monitor, watching the fuck-about in the yard.

Had I left any DNA at the cemetery? It was too late to worry about it now. But I did, just a bit.

Adrenalin and caffeine were taking their toll. I could almost feel the tension pumping round my body. At least the pain in my Adam’s apple was starting to ease.

I took another sip of my now-tepid brew and concentrated on looking as bored as everyone else, but the bites in my swollen tongue made that easier said than done. Shit, it hurt. I wouldn’t be putting away any packets of salt and vinegar for a while.

Five flights had been delayed so far. I heard the occasional Brit and American voice, and now and then a snatch of French and German, but most of the chat seemed to be in Russian or Paperclip.

A hardtop 110 Land Rover was still parked outside the terminal, either waiting for a pick-up, or until the driver was sure his passenger’s flight had actually taken off. For his sake, I hoped he’d brought his thermos and a paper.

Two men came out of the terminal, dragging their carry-ons behind them, and headed towards the sheds. They wore the international uniform of the travelling fifty-something American executive: blue blazer, button-down shirt, chinos, very shiny loafers and a laptop bag for good measure. They were clearly in a good mood, and anxious to share it. Some guys who’d been chatting in French, and switched instantly to English as they approached, were today’s lucky winners. ‘Hey, good news, fellas. The Vienna flight’s at 12.25. We gotta check in now.’

There were sighs of relief and jokes about Georgian inefficiency as the crowd gathered their bags and headed for the terminal.

I stood up just as Charlie emerged from the main entrance, laptop bag on his shoulder. He saw me, up and ready, and turned back.

I was about to follow when I caught a glimpse of the latest TV news bulletin. And what I saw made my body feel so heavy, all of a sudden, I had to sit down again.

Baz’s Audi filled the screen.

Then the camera cut to a glistening pool of blood in the mud, directly under the boot. Some of the rubber stops must have been missing from the drainage holes.

The reporter gobbed off, then a policeman answered a series of questions. A string of Paperclip flashed along the bottom of the screen, with what I assumed was a summary of the morning’s breaking story.

The camera homed in on the open boot, where the Hulk lay curled up like a baby, the satchel still shoved behind his back. He was big, and a lot darker-skinned than most locals.

It zoomed in even closer on the entry wounds. An ambulance crew stood by as forensics guys took swabs and checked for prints.

I took a casual sip of stone-cold coffee. Third-party awareness: I couldn’t look as if I was flapping. There were still people around waiting for their flights, chatting, smoking, ignoring the TV.

I tried to calm myself. I mean, so what? We’d be checking in any minute. In just over an hour, we’d be airborne.

Then my heart switched to rapid fire again, and it wasn’t because of the coffee.

With a still of the Audi filling half the screen behind him, a reporter was poking a microphone under the noses of three teenagers in multicoloured shell suits outside the graveyard. Two of them seemed to be explaining what they had seen. The third looked so out of it he wouldn’t have known if anyone had fallen on top of him anyway. The first two’s hands charted a course across their zit-filled, heroin-racked faces; I tried not to admit it to myself, but fuck it, what was the use — they were describing what I looked like.

Then it was back to the studio, where the anchorwoman spoke for a few moments. They flashed up a shot of the target house, with blue-and-whites all over the street, and cut to a close-up of the cameras mounted on the wall.

A few seconds later they broadcast the pictures that killed any hope I had of boarding the 12.25 to Vienna.

3

A few seconds of fuzzy, black-and-white CCTV footage flashed up, at the point where I’d turned back to the house after dropping Red Eyes.

They reran it, then freeze-framed on my face. The image was blurred, but they made up for that by cutting to an artist’s impression. It was the first drawing anyone had ever done of me, and I wished they hadn’t.

The next CCTV clip showed us both masked up as I got into the Audi and Charlie opened the gate. So it was official. I was in the shit. It didn’t matter if they were calling me Baz’s killer, or Red Eyes, or even all three of us. They had a face and were looking for it.

Head down, I made my way across the road to the terminal and the endless check-in queue. I found Charlie and got eye to eye. As I walked away, he followed.

I headed for the toilets. I stood at a urinal and Charlie took the one next to me. All the cubicle doors were open; we were alone.

‘It’s hit the news. You’re OK, but they got my face.’

Charlie wasn’t fazed. ‘What we going to do?’

‘We’re doing nothing, mate. You’re going to catch the flight. I can’t risk it — even if I make it airside, what if I get pinged? There’s TVs in there, mate. I’m better off staying landside. Maybe I’ll try for Turkey by road.’

There was no hesitation from him. ‘I’ll hire a car. We’ll get to the border by tonight, dump the car, and walk across. Piece of piss. Let’s go.’

He started to move but I grabbed his arm. ‘I don’t need your fucking hands disco-dancing all over the country. Besides, they even check what you look at online. For sure they’ll be checking car hire, and will be asking questions before you get the key in the door. Too risky. Take the papers, get the flight, get to Crazy Dave, and stand by. As soon as I get into Turkey I’ll give you a call and see you in H. I think we can still get you the rest of the money.’

Charlie wasn’t listening. ‘Wait here.’ He shoved his laptop bag at me. ‘Bung the tape and papers in here. Just in case you get lifted, at least I might have something here that’ll get you out the shit. Follow me, lad.’

He turned and walked out of the toilet, striding towards the terminal exit as I shoved everything in the bag, like a fumbling PA following in the wake of his boss.

Why couldn’t he just do what he was told for once? I got up level with him.

‘Fuck it, Charlie, just get the flight. I got an idea how to get your cash, it might even get me out of the shit as well.’

He still wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the glass exit doors. ‘We’re wasting time, lad. Once we’re out of here we can worry about money. But for now, just shut the fuck up and follow.’

We walked out of the terminal. ‘Wait here.’ Charlie carried on straight towards a young guy in a blue sweatshirt, sitting at the wheel of the 110.

Charlie had his serious, purposeful warrant officer face on as he marched up to the vehicle. The driver, a young white guy with a crew cut, watched him all the way to his window. A green, heavy-plastic sleeve lay on the dash. It was the 110’s work ticket folder, a log of the hours and mileage done, and had DUTY VEHICLE stencilled across it.

Charlie tapped on the glass and motioned him to wind it down.

‘Duty driver? You dropping off or picking up?’ Charlie spoke like he was giving the guy a bollocking for having done something wrong. Soldiers tend to react better to that tone of voice, because nine times out of ten they have.

‘Dropping off.’

Charlie exploded. ‘Dropping off, SIR! What camp you from, son?’ He turned and pointed at me. ‘Stay where you are! I haven’t told you to go anywhere. Bring my bag here.’

I jerked my head. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, bring it here, man. At least be of some use. I don’t know who I’m even handing it over to. What the fuck is wrong with this man’s army?’

I joined him and handed over the bag. Charlie made a show of looking for papers in the side pocket, eventually back to the driver. ‘What camp are you from?’

‘Camp Vasiani, sir.’

‘That the only camp in this area?’

‘Yessir.’

‘That’s where we’re going then.’

Charlie bounced back to me, still in bollocking mode. ‘Why weren’t any joining instructions sent to me?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘I sent an email requesting—’

‘Not good enough.’ Charlie was in full flow now. ‘Why isn’t there anyone here to pick us up?’

‘I… I don’t know, sir.’

‘You don’t know, sir? Oh, is that so?’ Charlie opened the rear door, slotted in the laptop and pointed at me. ‘In!’

I saw it now. Charlie wanted me in the front because we were going to do a bit of hijacking.

He glowered at the driver as I got into the front passenger seat. ‘How far to camp?’

‘Just under an hour, sir. But I have to get permission to—’

Charlie’s hand told him to shut up. ‘Just drive. The flights are all leaving now; you’re leaving nobody behind. We’ll sort it out on the way. Can’t your fucking officers even organize a pick-up?’

He jumped into the back as the duty driver leaned across and flicked a switch on his radio, a small green thing tucked into the dash.

Charlie was quick off the mark. ‘Just get going, I don’t need to talk to anyone. No-one seems to know what day of the week it is anyway.’

The driver was flapping as he leaned back towards Charlie. ‘But, sir, I gotta call in when I leave, and I gotta tell them if I dropped off OK. It’s a standing order.’

There was no way we could stop him; it all had to appear routine. After all, Charlie was the one moaning about inefficiency. He was hardly the sort of man who would break a standing order.

‘Well, get on with it then. Let’s go.’

The driver started up the 110 and we left the airport perimeter. Charlie gave me a wink as he waited for the boy to finish speaking into the boom-mike headset.

‘That’s right. Two pax for our locale. But no work sheet?’

He shrugged at whatever was being said in response.

Charlie’s hand loomed over the driver’s shoulder. ‘Give me that.’

He barked into the headset. ‘Who is this?’ There was a pause. ‘Well, Sergeant Jay DiRita, I did not receive any joining instructions, not even the name of the person I have come all the way from Istanbul to see!’

Charlie listened to DiRita. ‘Oh, is that so? You don’t have any visitors scheduled for today? Well, Sergeant DiRita, now you do. We will be there soon to try to make sense of this total cock-up.’

He passed the headset forward to the driver and sat fuming out of the window.

I looked out at the parrot-coloured apartment blocks lining the dual carriageway, and hoped we got out in the cuds soon, so we could bin the driver and head for that border.

I scanned the dashboard. ‘Got a map?’

4

We continued along the dual carriageway towards the city. I glanced from time to time at the parrot-coloured apartment blocks while the duty driver over-concentrated on the road to avoid having to catch the eye of the monster in the back.

The map he’d handed me wasn’t much more than a commercial traveller’s guide to the main drags and towns, but at least I could see the Vasiani region, about thirty Ks north-east of the city. It looked like our current route would take us to the right, around the bottom of Tbilisi, then up towards the camp.

‘You haven’t got a better one, have you? I like to know where I’m going.’

He kept his eyes on the road. ‘’Fraid not, sir. The duty wagon only ever gets to go to and from the airport, and once we’re on this road, there’s not a helluva lot of choice.’

He took a right onto a single-carriage road. We were no longer in parrot country. A mile or two later we reached the mountains, and wove our way towards a sky filled with doom-laden clouds, massing for another downpour.

As we made our way down the other side, I saw the glare of brake lights. There were a couple of vehicles ahead of us, both slowing. Our driver changed down through the gears until we were creeping along at walking pace.

A hundred or so metres ahead, grey nylon sandbags had been piled into sangars each side of the road, and large concrete blocks had been positioned between them to channel the traffic.

I heard Charlie shifting in his seat behind me, and knew he’d seen it too. The same thoughts must have been racing through his head: were they going to ask for passports or ID? And even if they weren’t, had they read their papers or watched the news?

He leaned forward to give the driver another bollocking. ‘What’s the VCP for? Do we have to stop?’

‘Yessir. There’s checkpoints on all the approach roads to the city.’

On the far side of the VCP, a rusty old coach leaned precariously under the uneven load of crap strapped to its roof, and a line of cars waited impatiently behind it while soldiers with body armour and AKs checked out its passengers.

Charlie passed me the laptop bag. ‘Sort this thing out. I can’t get it to work.’

‘Yes, sir.’ I took it and got my head down. I made a bit of a meal of opening it up and fucking about with the power button until the screen started to flicker.

We were now the third vehicle in line. A Georgian soldier was heading towards us on the driver’s side, his weapon slung over his shoulder. A group of his mates were gathered on my side of the road, in the shadow of the sangar.

‘Can I have your IDs, sirs? They’ll want them alongside my work ticket.’

‘Unbelievable,’ Charlie fumed. ‘We’re here to help these people, and all they do is mess us around. Do we look like bloody militants?’

The squaddie got to the vehicle in front of us. He leaned down to speak to the driver, who was ready with some kind of ID. They had a bit of a chat and the squaddie pointed to the sky and shrugged, probably moaning about the weather. He took a step back, waved the driver through, and sauntered towards us.

I leaned even further forward, completely absorbed by the problem with the laptop.

‘Sir, I need—’

‘Fuck this.’ Charlie was out of the wagon, his back straight as a ramrod, his shoulders squared.

‘You!’ He jutted his jaw at the Georgian. ‘Stand up straight, man!’

Some orders are understood by every soldier in any language. The squaddie snapped to attention.

‘Why are you holding us up? You think we have all day?’ Charlie was gripping him big-time now. Looking him up and down, inspecting him. This boy was back on the parade ground.

‘Please, sir, he can’t understand you.’ The driver was half out of his cab. ‘Please, let me…’ He tried to placate the angry officer, at the same time as exchanging a knowing look with his fellow squaddie.

Charlie flicked the open map-pocket flap on the Georgian’s combat trousers. ‘What’s this, man? Get your act together! Buttons are there for a purpose; they’re not just decoration! Sort yourself out, soldier!’

I held my breath as Charlie got back into the vehicle. I thought he might have overdone it with his Starship Trooper impression.

The squaddie hesitated for a moment, dark thoughts furrowing his Slavic brow. Then he reached down and fumbled with his trousers. The other guys on stag kept well out of it.

‘Right, let’s get this wagon moving.’

The driver reached for the folder on the dash. I gave the laptop screen my total attention.

He wound down his window and passed the paperwork through as Charlie prodded my shoulder and treated me to the same kind of bollocking.

I nodded obediently and tapped the keys some more, then looked up to the skies for salvation. The Georgian hurriedly flicked open the folder and checked its contents.

Charlie was incandescent. ‘Come on! Get a move on!’

No way did this boy want to be treated to another helping of what Mr Angry had to offer. He scribbled a signature on the work ticket, then handed the driver his millboard for him to do the same. Almost in the same motion, he waved us through.

We negotiated the concrete chicane and came alongside the bus. The driver looked a little concerned about my performance with the laptop, and I could hardly blame him, especially now that I packed it up and passed it back to Charlie.

‘I think everything is fine, sir.’ I glanced at the driver and rolled my eyes. Officers, eh?

The driver hit the net. ‘Hello. Duty Vehicle through checkpoint Alpha. Over.’

‘Roger, duty vehicle. Checkpoint Alpha. Out.’

Charlie sat there glowering. I could almost feel the heat of his anger on the back of my neck, and I knew the boy on my left could too.

I tried a little gentle fishing. ‘What a drag for you… How many of these things do you have to get through?’

‘Just the one, sir.’ I could hear the relief in his voice. The last thing he wanted was for Charlie to get revved up for an encore.

We emerged into a huge valley, with a network of rivers and streams, and at least ten Ks of undulating ground separating the mountains on either side. It was big, tree-covered country out here, Switzerland without the cows.

Even though we had escaped the confines of Tbilisi it was still going to be difficult lifting this thing. The traffic wasn’t anything like as busy as it had been in the city, but there was a constant stream of military trucks, full of bored Georgian squaddies rolling their heads from side to side, and packed-out buses with sacks of spuds and bags and all sorts strapped on top, bouncing between towns and slowing down only to squeeze past each other on the narrow stretch of crumbling tarmac.

We passed yet another of them, heading towards the city, and drove into a depression a couple of hundred metres long. We were in dead ground. It was as good a place as any.

I held up a hand. ‘I need a piss.’

The driver slowed immediately, and pulled up on the grass verge.

I got out and walked round the front of the wagon, so I could position myself on the driver’s side, before moving towards the rear and going through the motions. Charlie also got out and stretched his legs. He wandered past the radiator grille and seemed to spot something. He pointed underneath the bonnet, then looked up at the driver. ‘What is this? Driver, get out!’

The squaddie jumped dutifully out and joined Charlie at the front of the vehicle. I turned and followed, two steps behind.

Charlie was still bumping his gums. ‘Who’s responsible for this wagon? Look at the state of it.’

The driver looked, but he couldn’t see anything wrong. ‘But, sir, I can’t—’

I closed my hands around his mouth and jaw and jumped on his back. I pulled his head into my chest, wrapped my legs around his waist and toppled backwards.

5

I landed in the grass, with him on top of me, and hooked my legs through the inside of his. The boy didn’t resist for a second or two, then he started to kick and flail his arms.

‘It’s OK, mate, it’s OK,’ Charlie said.

I pulled back even harder and kept my body and legs rigid.

‘We’re not going to hurt you, mate. Just calm down. Come on, composure…’ Charlie leaned over him and raised his finger, as if scolding a child. ‘Cool it, son, we’re not here to hurt you. There’ll be no pain.’

He jerked and writhed even more in response, so I reined him in more tightly still.

Charlie went through his pockets and tossed the contents onto the grass. I knew he’d be checking for a cell. If he had one, it would have to be dumped as soon as we were down the road. There’d be no point in calling Crazy Dave with a warning order that he had a lot of shit to sort out, and no point in taking it with us, in case it was tracked.

He stepped back. ‘Nope, he’s not got one.’

The boy was breathing a little easier now.

Charlie pointed at him again, and this time his tone was almost apologetic. ‘Listen, son, we’re going to take the wagon, and we’re going to leave you here. I know it won’t be your idea of a perfect day out, but just accept it. If you start playing silly buggers, we’re going to have to slap you about a bit, and take you with us. If you behave, we’ll let you go. Now that’s not rocket science, is it?’

He nodded as best he could with his head still compressed against my shoulder.

‘I’m going to let go of you now,’ I said. ‘I want you to just roll off and start walking away. That’s it, mate, that’s all you have to do. OK?’

His breathing slowed a little and he gave something approaching a nod.

‘OK, here we go.’

I released my grip, untangled my legs, and he did exactly as he’d been told.

Charlie kept an eye on him as I got to my feet and moved round to the driver’s door. ‘That’s it, son, just walk away. Well done.’

Charlie jumped into the back seat and I switched on the radio. If anyone was going to start gobbing off about us, I wanted to hear it.

We were good for fuel. The tank was three-quarters full. No surprises there — duty wagons were always topped up after every job, ready for the next.

I glanced over my shoulder. Charlie had the laptop bag on his knees. ‘On the metal or cross country?’ I threw him the map.

‘Shows fuck all.’ He studied it for a few more seconds and shook his head. ‘So I guess we’re committed to this, unless we see a minor they haven’t bothered to include.’

‘It takes us straight through Vasiani…’

Charlie pored over the map again. ‘Maybe, maybe. But if we get past it, we can box around the city and then head south.’

He looked up at the ground to our left, then behind him. ‘Or we head back cross-country, get around the VCP, then back on the road and south. We can’t go back through the city. It’ll be too easy for them to ping us in this thing once the driver manages to get an SOS out. He’ll be flagging down a vehicle the first chance he gets.’

He paused. ‘What you reckon, worth a go?’

We drove on for another five minutes to make sure we were well clear of the driver, then I chucked the 110 into four-wheel drive and headed left, off road. Once we were out of sight of it, I’d parallel back past the VCP.

The wagon lurched and skidded in the soft ground. The days of intense rainfall had saturated and loosened the soil. It wasn’t ideal, and we didn’t have much time to spare — it’d be a couple of hours, max, until the driver ran back to the VCP and raised the alarm and everyone would be looking for the 110 — but we didn’t have a whole lot of choice.

If we got stuck, we’d just have to dig the fucker out. At least we weren’t on the steeper ground. A combination of heavy rainfall, steep slopes and a surface loose enough to overcome the gravitational pull that kept it in place was the recipe for landslides.

We dropped into dead ground and turned left, but it was no cause for celebration. If anything, the conditions were worse. Glutinous mud sucked at the wheels and we sank down almost to our axles. I checked out Baby-G, then glanced at the dash. We had been going just over thirty minutes, and only covered a couple of Ks.

I turned back to Charlie. ‘This ain’t going to work, mate. At this rate we won’t even be past the VCP by the time he’s raised the alarm. He might even be there now if he’s hitched a lift.’

‘Nothing’s changed, lad. If we head back onto the road, we’re committed.’

I grabbed the map and traced the route round the north of the city, in case we could head west and chuck a left towards Turkey. I also looked out for filling stations, but I didn’t see any marked.

‘That’s got to be better than being stuck right here. At least we get to make distance. That’s what we need, mate. What do you say, cut our losses?’

6

I stopped just short of the crest of the hill and Charlie got out.

He scrambled up to check the dead ground in front of us, dropped onto his hands and knees as he neared the skyline, and crawled the last few metres. We didn’t want to run the risk of piling straight over the top and discovering that our old mates at the sangar were right there in front of us.

He waved me up and jumped back in as I drew level with him. He leaned through the gap between the front seats. ‘The road’s two hundred the other side of the rise. No way have we passed that VCP.’

I edged the wagon uphill. ‘We’ll soon find out, one way or the other. Fuck ’em.’

The time comes when you just have to accept your options are running out and go for it.

We hit the road, hung a left, and I flicked the 110 back into two-wheel to conserve fuel.

No more than a minute later, we saw the duty driver ahead of us. He spotted the wagon and started waving us down.

Charlie laughed. ‘Bet he changes his mind when he sees who it is.’

He was right. As we got closer, the guy did a double take and legged it into the trees.

Another quarter of an hour and we had to slow for an oncoming truck, overloaded with turnips. A few fell off and bounced across the top of our wagon as we manoeuvred round each other.

We came to the top of another rise and the dead ground opened up before us. The camp was in the distance, maybe a K off the road, along what looked like a newly laid gravel track.

It was the size of a small city. Dozens of green twenty-man tents stood in smart, regimented lines along the side of a chain-link-fenced compound. To their right lay a maze of Portakabin-type structures with satellite dishes on their roofs, either linked in terraces or connected by concrete roadways.

Five or six Hueys were parked in a neat line beside a helicopter pan.

The main drag continued for maybe three Ks past the junction towards another camp on higher ground.

Charlie leaned forward again. ‘Fucking hell, they’ve got the whole army here!’

He wasn’t wrong. ‘Any bright ideas?’

He shook his head. ‘We’ve got to keep on going for it. Nowhere else to go. And we’re in a company wagon, aren’t we? Let’s hope the driver hasn’t got to the VCP yet and they just give us a nod.’

I put my foot down and we accelerated past the turn-off to the first camp. The track was actually hardcore, and stretched a K or so to the main gate, where massive US and Georgian flags fluttered shoulder to shoulder in the breeze.

The fields either side of us were a hive of activity. The Partnership for Peace programme was in full swing. American unarmed-combat instructors in green T-shirts and US Marine Corps spotty-camouflage BDU bottoms were putting Georgian troops through their paces. They looked as though they were having a great time, kicking the shit out of the happy boys from the recruitment commercial while their mates force-fed infantry fieldcraft to patrols in arrowhead formation.

No-one gave us a second glance.

So far so good.

The 110 started to shake and rattle as the road surface quickly deteriorated the other side of the junction. I kept my foot to the floor as we moved uphill towards the second camp.

I dropped to third on the steeper gradient and the 110 ate it up. I was starting to feel good about this.

‘Hello, duty vehicle, duty vehicle. Is that you on the hill? Report. Over.’

I looked down at the radio and then at Charlie. He shrugged his shoulders. Somebody with nothing better to do was watching us through their binos. So what?

I changed down to second to get a spurt on past the camp at the top of the hill, in case they’d been instructed to stop us.

‘Duty vehicle, do not go any further. Repeat, do not go any further. Return to our locale. Over.’ Maybe they needed the wagon back to pick up the CO’s sandwiches.

We ignored it again. The throttle was flat to the boards. The engine screamed as we headed on up the hill.

‘Do not cross the demarcation line. Crossing the demarcation line is contrary to standing orders. Repeat, return to this locale. Over.’

‘Demarcation line?’ Charlie’s head was level with mine as he too peered up the hill. ‘These two places in the middle of a union dispute?’

‘Something like that.’ I nodded in the direction of the flags flying over the gates of the camp, now about 150 ahead on our left. They weren’t the Stars and Stripes or anything to do with Richard the Lionheart, but the white, blue and red horizontals of the Russian Federation.

Charlie’s head was level with my right shoulder. ‘Fuck it, let’s just keep going; take our chances. There’s fuck all else we can do.’

We began to parallel the camp’s front fence. Men in uniform swarmed around in confusion alongside never-ending lines of tents and vehicles. By the look of it, they were getting stood to.

There was now a major flap on at the main gate. I slowed as armed men spilled out on the road. Were they throwing up a roadblock?

The radio blared at us again. ‘Duty vehicle, status report. Over.’

I kept my eyes on the uniforms up ahead. They’d obviously dressed in a bit of a hurry; some had combat jackets that weren’t done up, some didn’t have helmets. But they all had AKs. Run one of them over and they’d open up big-time.

‘I’m not going to stop. I’m just going to keep going, but real slow. You up for it?’

I looked back at Charlie in the rear-view.

He winked. ‘So which one are you, Butch or Sundance?’

7

We were level with the main gate and the speedo flickered near twenty. Nobody on the road seemed to know what to do. They were all mouthing the Russian for ‘What the fuck’s a British 110 doing up here?’ Thankfully they all still had their AKs slung rather than in the shoulder.

Charlie started to wave. ‘How’s it going, lads?’

They stared back, then some of the younger ones smiled and returned the wave. NCOs started shouting angrily, trying to get something organized.

We trundled past, Prince Charlie in the back still doing his greet-the-people bit. Still nobody challenged us.

The radio barked. ‘Duty vehicle, turn around, turn around. Do not stop; do not take any action that is deemed aggressive. If apprehended, comply with their orders.’

‘Shut up, you twat,’ Charlie said, smiling broadly at his new subjects.

I flicked the radio off.

Moments later, we were clear of the confusion. I was braced for shots, but none came. We were going gently downhill, no longer in view from the American camp.

The fence line stopped. Charlie turned and looked back. ‘Still no follow-up. Let’s keep going. Get that foot down, lad.’

Absolutely no argument with him on that one.

For maybe thirty minutes we saw no junctions, no options, no VCPs, just lots of undulating green to our front, a forest to our left, and a valley to our right. The engine was gunning and we were up to 90 Ks an hour in some places where the road surface allowed it.

The duty driver must have reached the VCP by now. But so what? We were well out of the area. There’d be a Welcome to Tbilisi VCP waiting over the horizon somewhere on the road, just itching for the chance to stop us any way it could, but we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Then I heard something all too familiar, and my heart sank.

I looked at Charlie and could tell from his expression that I was right.

He wound down his window.

The noise was louder and unmistakable.

The steady throb of heavy rotor blades cutting the air.

They had a pipeline to protect: of course they would have a QRF [quick reaction force] on standby. I just wished they hadn’t taken the quick bit so much to heart.

Charlie bounced around in the back to try to pinpoint where it was coming from. I leaned forward over the wheel, straining my eyes up into a still-empty sky.

The steady beat seemed to come up level with us, and then the Huey broke out of the dead ground to our right, no more than a couple of metres away.

For the two seconds it was overhead, the 110 almost stood still under the pressure from its downwash. I could see the pilot quite easily. Both the side doors were pulled back, and the space between them was heaving with dark green BDUs and the odd two or three in US Marine spotty-camouflage.

They waved urgently, pointed weapons, gestured at us to stop.

Bollocks. They’d have to land on top of me before that happened.

I kept my foot down.

The Huey flared away and disappeared into dead ground ahead. Moments later, another set of rotors started beating the air behind us.

Charlie leaned over the back seat. ‘Here it comes. Shit, it’s low!’

Huey Two passed directly over us, just feet away, following the road. I could see the soles of combat boots resting on the skids and AK barrels sticking out of the open doors.

The 110 shook violently. Maybe they really were going to try to land on top of us.

Charlie scanned the sky. ‘Where’s the first one gone?’

‘Fuck knows, but I think this one fancies us. Look.’

It had scooted about 200 metres ahead, and flared up as it turned back round to face us. The heli’s skids bounced onto the road and troops started jumping into the haze of its exhaust fumes.

From our right, and closing in, I heard the slap of another set of rotors. Huey One passed more or less level with the 110 as it moved to take up station behind us. It was going to drop its troops to cut us off.

Fuck this. I yanked the wagon hard left, over the rough ground towards the treeline. There weren’t enough of them to find us in there.

Huey One immediately turned back towards us and swooped like a kestrel onto a field mouse, settling at a hover just feet above us. A spotty uniform leaned out, feet on the skid, one hand gripping the door frame. He fixed me with a stare and shook his head slowly, then moved the index finger of the other slowly across his throat.

‘Fuck him, don’t stop, lad. Nearly there.’

We had maybe 300 to go. My head bounced off the roof as the wagon took on the terrain. It shook, rattled and tipped from side to side, but still kept going.

The heli moved ahead and landed. More troops fanned out and took up fire positions between us and the treeline.

I swung the wheel half right. Safety was just 200 away now.

Huey Two had picked up its men from the road and was back in the game, coming at us from the right.

‘He’s coming real low, lad…’

Charlie kept up a running commentary while I concentrated on the driving. It was still in two-wheel; I wasn’t going to stop the momentum to get it in four.

‘They got caltrops!’

I kept my foot hard to the floor, leaning over the wheel, urging the 110 closer to the cover of the trees. The rear of the wagon went momentarily airborne and the back wheels spun with a high-pitched whine, like a propeller out of water. We had to beat the caltrops.

Huey Two had come in above us. Its down-wash pummelled the wagon from side to side. It moved just ahead. A spotty uniform was perched on the skid; a ten-metre strip, peppered with three-pronged spikes, swayed from his hand towards the ground.

I swerved right again, paralleling the treeline. Just over a hundred to go.

Charlie pulled the tape and papers from the computer bag, ready to run. ‘The other heli’s up! Here any second. Get that fucking foot down.’

The caltrops were only metres ahead, coming in left to right.

‘Stand by… stand by… they got us!’

The caltrops fell and the tyres hit almost immediately.

8

The steering wheel vibrated violently in my hands for several seconds then the wagon simply came to a halt. Tyres deflated, the wheel rims had just ploughed into the mud.

Both helis were on us. BDUs jumped out metres away, weapons up. The guys would be pumped. Some looked nervous, some like they just wanted to chalk up a kill.

I raised my hands very slowly and obviously and placed them on the dash, where they could be seen.

A black guy in spotty-camouflage, two bars on his lapel, shouted from the front of the wagon, over the roar of the helis. ‘Get out of the vehicle! Get out of the vehicle!’

We didn’t fuck around.

Baby Georgians swarmed round and kicked us to the ground. Hands searched us. Pockets were pulled out, jackets ripped open.

One of the Hueys took off again and hovered above the 110 as I got turned over onto my back and searched some more. A winch cable descended from its belly, at the end of which hung a set of wide nylon straps.

The downwash was heavy with the stench of aviation fuel. My face was splattered by earth, grit, and rainwater from the grass.

Thanks to the caltrops, the wagon wasn’t going anywhere without help, even if the BDUs had wanted to risk another international incident with the Russians. The Georgian boys were all over it like a rash, rigging the webbing straps. This beat the shit out of another day in the classroom.

AKs bore down on us and the black guy loomed back into my line of sight. He carried out yet another search, oblivious to the buffeting of the downwash.

‘The driver’s OK! We dropped him a few Ks from camp. He’s fine.’ I took a deep breath so I could make myself heard over the two sets of rotors. ‘We didn’t touch him, he’s OK!’

People can get very dangerous if they think one of their own has been hurt.

My hands were grabbed. The cuffs had solid steel spacers instead of chains. You can’t flex your wrists in them. They were closed far too tight, but I wasn’t complaining. I just looked down, clenched my teeth, kept my muscles taut, ready for another kicking.

The captain grabbed hold of the spacer and gave it a tug. I was totally under his control. He jumped the caltrops, and started running towards the second Huey. It was just too painful to do anything but follow as best I could.

I looked behind me and saw Charlie quick-timing to keep up with his escort.

The captain jumped aboard first. He hauled me up and shoved me into one of the red nylon webbing seats that ran down the centre of the cabin, facing the doors. Charlie’s man did exactly the same from the other side.

The Georgians leaped on board behind us, and the heli lifted. I got a great view of the other Huey, hovering above the 110. It was just about rigged up and ready to go.

The troops it had ferried in would have to stay behind; I guessed they’d come back for them after dropping us off.

As we crossed the main drag, a line of overexcited locals peered up at us from the windows of a rusty old coach loaded with suitcases, shopping bags, chickens in cages, all sorts, on the roof rack. I guessed theirs would be the last happy faces I’d be seeing for a while.

We flew over the bus, giving the Russian camp a wide berth to the left. The captain had pulled on a set of headphones and talked fast into the boom mike. The noise of the engine and the rush of the wind made it impossible to hear what he was saying, but I knew it had to be about us.

The inside of the Huey hadn’t had anything done to it since it left Mr Bell’s factory in the 1980s. The walls were still lined with faded silver padded material, and the floor’s non-slip, gritty paint had worn away before some of these squaddies were even getting the hang of their first water pistols.

We hugged the side of the valley, using it as cover from the Russians who’d be up there, somewhere, radioing a progress report to Moscow.

We flew low and fast, trees, animals and buildings zooming past in a blur.

We tilted left and right, following the contours. Wind blasted the interior as we took a particularly sharp right-hander. I gripped my seat between my legs to stop myself being tipped into the trees.

We levelled out then surged over the ridge and Camp Vasiani spread out ahead of us.

The fieldcraft training was still in full swing, but I now knew it was just for show. The real Partnership for Peace programme was being played out here in the Huey. Guys like the US Marine in the seat beside me would stay in charge, while the Georgian boys would do the housework and smile for the cameras.

We hovered over the concrete pan and came in to land. Exhaust fumes and downwash gusted into my face.

No sooner were the skids on the ground than we were manhandled in the direction of a waiting 110.

In the distance, the other Huey appeared over the ridgeline, the Land Rover dangling from its belly.

Down here, confusion reigned. The Georgians bundled us into the back of the 110. One of their mates was driving, and the others formed an armed escort. Four outriders sat astride dull-green quad bikes. The marine in charge wore body armour, helmet and wraparounds, and had an M16 slung across his back. The bar on his lapels and the top of his helmet marked him out as a lieutenant.

We were bounced around the camp perimeter and eventually arrived at the Portakabin complex. I didn’t bother coming up with any scenarios. I’d have no influence on events, so I was going to take things as they came. I just had to accept I was deeply in the shit: if they didn’t know it already, they wouldn’t take long to realize that they had a local TV and newspaper star on their hands. And once they did, well, every minute I wasn’t banged up in a Georgian police cell with a crew cut and thumbscrews was a bonus.

We turned into an open square lined by groups of the cream-coloured, aluminium Portakabin modules. The 110 stopped, and the quad bikes pulled up around us.

The lieutenant dismounted and shouted a series of orders.

Three US Marines stood to on our right, in body armour and Kevlar helmets, weapons in the shoulder. Their message was clear. ‘Hands up! Show me your hands! Hands in the air!’

I spotted the air-conditioning units on the roofs of the modules. I had a feeling we’d be needing them.