Recoil

2

The only people to my front now were LRA. I wondered if they were already massed on our side of the river and, like our guys, sitting and waiting. Maybe they were just a couple of hundred away on each side of the entrance, psyching themselves up with an extra couple of rations of ghat. Or maybe they were still dragging themselves across the water with ropes. Some would have drowned, that was for sure, ripped away by the current – especially the younger, smaller ones, who could hardly lift a weapon, let alone carry it and fight the current.

This whole situation was total and utter shite. In some trendy bar in the City, some white-socked trader would be checking tin prices on his handheld while I checked the connections between the detonator and the det cord.

As he and his wife took their kids out to some fancy dinner in the West End, did they spare a thought for Sunday and his mates? Did they fuck. They wouldn’t even know about them. But Crucial was right. We had to cut away from all that.

I can’t change the world, but I can do something for this bit of it . . .

The bond between the two lengths of det cord and the dets was good. Everything was ready to go. I had the firing cable wound round a rock to take the strain, and the ends that would connect to the plunger still twisted to make sure they didn’t pick up any static while I was on the move.

I didn’t need the last slab of HE in the box, or the remaining dets. I twisted their wires and dumped the lot at the business end of the enterprise. It wasn’t as if I was going to get a second chance at rigging up this shit.

I hauled the plunger-box strap over my shoulder. The detonation mechanism always stays with the guy who’s going to initiate. The plunger would be under my control right up until I handed it over to Sam. That way, there couldn’t be any mistakes.

AK under my left arm, I started moving backwards into the valley.

The wooden reel rumbled as the cable trailed out.