Last Light

"Can I have some of your printer paper and a marker pen?"

She knew exactly what I needed it for. Tell you what," she said, I'll even throw in some tacks for free. See you outside."

She went into the computer room and I went out through the squeaking mozzie screen and on to the veranda. The sky was still brilliant blue. The crickets were going for it like there was no tomorrow, and a monkey or something was making a happy noise somewhere in the canopy. But I wasn't fooled. No matter:

after a shower and some cream on my back, the love affair with the jungle was back on.

Even in the shade of the veranda, it was already much hotter out here. I was glad I was beginning to feel better, because it was an oppressive heat.

My dizziness had all but disappeared, and it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get to grips with what I was here to do. The mozzie screen squeaked open and chopped off my train of thought as Carrie came out carrying a crunched up paper bag. She handed it over.

"I've told Luz you might go hunting later, so you want to try out the rifle."

I'll be over there." I indicated the treeline about two hundred metres away, to the right of the house. It was on the opposite side to the track, so if Aaron came back early from rescuing jaguars he wouldn't get a 7.62 in his ear.

"See you in a bit."

As soon as I left the shelter of the veranda, the sun's fierce glare blinded me.

I screwed up my eyes and looked down. Most of the moisture had evaporated off the grass, but the heavy humidity meant the puddles were still intact apart from a muddy crust around the edges.

I could feel my shoulders and the back of my neck burning as I kept my eyes on the rough, thick-bladed grass. I knew that once

I got to the treeline things would improve. It would be just as hot and sticky, but at least this rabiblanco wouldn't be getting blow-torched.

I had a quick check of Baby-G. Unbelievably, it was only 10.56. The sun could only get hotter.

Carrie called out from behind me, still on the veranda.

"Look after it." She pointed to the weapon.

"It's very precious to me." I had to squint to see her, but I was sure there was a smile.

"By the way, only load up four rounds. You can place five in the magazine OK, but can't close the bolt without stripping off the second round got it?"

I lifted the weapon as I walked. I'd keep the PBZ (point blank zero), if it still existed. Why mess with something that might already be right? I might cock it up by trying to improve it.

I let my hand drop with the weapon and carried on towards the treeline, thinking of how the three snipers in London would have reacted to the idea of using a PBZ to drop a target, on top of ammunition that could have been made by the local blacksmith. To ensure consistency, they'd have pulled apart every one of the rounds I supplied them with to check there was exactly the same amount of propellant in each cartridge case.

PBZ is just a way of averaging out the averages to ensure the round at least hits the target somewhere in the vital area. Hunters use it; for them, the vital area is an area about seven inches centred on the animal's heart. The way it works is quite simple. As a round leaves the barrel, it rises, then begins to fall because of gravity. The trajectory is relatively flat with a large 7.62mm round like these: over a range of 350 metres the round won't rise or fall more than seven inches. As long as the hunter isn't further away than 350 metres, he just aims at the centre of the killing area, and the round should drop the bear or whatever else is charging towards him. My shoot should be from a maximum of 300 metres, so if I aimed at the centre of the target's sternum, he should take a round somewhere in the chest cavity what is known in sniper world as a target-rich environment: heart, kidneys, arteries, anything that will make him suffer immediate and catastrophic loss of blood. It was not as sophisticated as the London snipers' catastrophic brain shot, because the weapon and rounds weren't exactly state-of-the-art, and I hadn't had enough practice.

A heart shot would probably make the target unconscious, and kill him in ten or fifteen seconds. The same went for the liver, because the tissue is so soft;

even a near miss can sometimes have the same effect. As the round travels through the body, crushing, compressing, and tearing away the flesh, a shock-wave comes with it, causing a massive temporary inflation of neighbouring tissues that messes them up big-time.

A hit to the lungs would incapacitate, but it might not kill him, especially if he was treated quickly enough. The ideal would be for the round to hit the target's spine high up, above his shoulder-blades, as it exited, or entered if I took him back on. This would have very much the effect the three snipers had been trying to achieve: instant death, dropping him like liquid.

This was all very fine in theory, but there was a host of other factors to contend with. I might be trying to hit a moving target, there might be a wind. I might only have one part of a body to aim at, or only one weird angle to take the shot from.

Trying not to think about the boy smiling out of the Lexus, I wandered the two hundred or so metres to the treeline, put down the ammunition box, and stood for a while in the shade, looking towards the hill, the target area. Then I set off towards the rising ground.

I found a suitable tree and pinned a sheet of paper to the bottom third of the trunk with one of the drawing pins. With a marker pen I drew a circle about the size of a two-pound coin and inked it in. It was a bit of a lumpy circle with uneven edges because I was pushing it against the bark, but it would do.

I then pinned a sheet above and another below the first, then, making the best of the shade, turned and walked back with the weapon and rounds, counting out a hundred one-yard paces. At that range, even if the sight was wildly inaccurate, with luck I would cut paper to see how bad it was. If the zero was out by, say, two inches at a hundred yards, then at two hundred yards it would be four inches, and so on. So if I lay down initially at three hundred, I could be six inches out, either up, down, left or right,

possibly missing the paper altogether. Trying to see my strike as I fired would waste time, of which I didn't have much.

A hundred paces later and "still in the shade of the treeline, I checked for beasties, sat against a tree, and slowly closed the bolt action. It was extremely well made: the action was soft, almost buttery, as the oil-bearing surfaces moved over each other without resistance. I pushed the bolt handle down towards the furniture (the wood that shapes the weapon), and there was a gentle click as it fell into its locked position.

Before I fired this weapon I needed to find out what the trigger pressures were.

Correct trigger control will release the firing pin without moving the weapon.

All trigger pressures are different, and nearly all sniper weapons can be adjusted for the individual firer. I wasn't going to do that because I didn't know how to on a Mosin Nagant, and I wasn't that particular anyway I usually adjusted myself to whatever the pressures were.

I placed the centre of the top pad of my right index finger gently against the trigger. There was just a few millimetres of give as I squeezed backwards until I felt resistance. This was the first pressure. The resistance was the second pressure; I gently squeezed again, and instantly heard the click as the firing pin pushed itself out of the head of the bolt. That was fine for me: some snipers prefer no first pressure at all, but I quite liked having that looseness before firing.

Pulling the bolt back once more, I took one of the twenty-round boxes of large brass 7.62 rounds out of the ammunition box, and fed in four, one at a time, from the top of the breech, into what should have been a fixed five-round mag.

Then I slid home the bolt once more, watching as it pushed the top round into the chamber. There was a slight resistance only as I pushed the cocking handle down towards the furniture and the bolt locked into place, securing the round so it could be fired. The on off switch was at the back of the cocking piece, a flat circle of metal at the rear of the bolt about the size of a fifty-pence piece, and turning it to the left I applied Safe. It was a pain in the arse to do, but I supposed there wasn't much call for them when this thing was made it was too busy killing Germans.

I looked for a small mound in the rough ground to double as a sandbag, and after a beastie check, lay down behind it in the prone position. The steel plate of the weapon butt was in the soft tissue of my right shoulder and my trigger finger ran over the trigger guard. My left forearm was resting against the mound and I let my hand find its natural position along the stock of the weapon, just forward of the rear sight. There were grooves cut into the furniture each side to give a better grip.

Your bones are the foundation for holding a weapon; your muscles are the cushioning that holds it tightly in position. I had to make a tripod of my elbows and the left side of my ribcage. I had the added benefit of resting my forearm against the mound. I needed to ensure that the position and hold were firm enough to support the weapon, and that I was also comfortable.

I looked through the sight, making sure there was no shadowing around the edges of the optic. There was no problem about closing my left eye: half the job had already been done for me yesterday. The biggest mistake made by novice firers using a post sight is that they think the point to aim at is where the horizontal line crosses the post. It's not, it's the top of the post, right where the point is. The horizontal line is so you can check there's no canting (weapon tilting).

I took aim at the centre of the not-too-circular black circle then closed my eyes and stopped breathing. I relaxed my muscles slightly as I emptied my lungs.

Three seconds later, I opened my eyes, started to breathe normally, and looked through the sight once more. I found that my point of aim had shifted to the left-hand edge of the sheet of paper, so I swivelled my body round to the right, then did the same thing twice more until I was naturally aligned to the target.

It was pointless trying to force my body into a position that it didn't want to be in: that would affect the round when I fired. I was now ready to take the first shot.

I took three deep breaths to oxygenate my body. If you're not oxygenated you can't see correctly; even if you're not firing a weapon, if you just stand and gaze at something in the far distance and stop breathing, you will see it go blurry very quickly.

The weapon sight moved up and down with my body as I

sucked in air, and settled to a gentler movement as I started to breathe normally. It was only then that I took off the safety, by pulling back and turning it to the right. Acquiring a good sight picture once more, I aimed before taking up the first pressure. At the same time I stopped breathing, in order to steady the weapon.

One second, two seconds ... I gently squeezed the second pressure.

I didn't even hear the crack, I was so busy maintaining concentration and non reaction while the weapon jumped up and back into my shoulder. All the time I kept my right eye open and followed through the shot, watching as the point of aim came back to settle on the centre of the target. That was good: it meant my body was correctly aligned. If not, the point of aim would have moved to where my body was naturally pointing.

The round needed to be followed through because although there might only be less than a second between me taking the second pressure, sending the firing pin forward and striking the round, and the bullet heading up the barrel as the gases forced it out towards the target, the slightest movement would mean the point of aim not being the same at the instant the bullet exited the muzzle as when I fired. Not good news if you're trying to kill somebody with a single round.

That was the end of the firing sequence. I became aware of the different colours and sizes of the flocks of birds lifting from the trees. The canopy rustled as they screamed and flapped their wings to make their getaway.

In real time there are many occasions when these drills can't be used. But as long as you understand them, and have used them to zero the weapon, there's a good chance you can take on an opportunity target and drop it.

I looked through the sight to check where my round had fallen. I'd hit the top of the main sheet of paper: about five inches high. That was OK, it should be high at this close range: the optic was set at 350. The main thing was that it wasn't higher than seven inches.

The problem was that, although the round was at more or less the correct height for the range, it had gone to the left of the centre line by maybe as much as three inches. At 300 yards that would become nine inches. I would have missed the chest, and maybe hit an arm if he was static and I was lucky. That wasn't good enough.

I lay back and watched the birds coming back to their nests. I waited maybe three minutes before reloading because I needed this to be a cold barrel zero:

when I took the next shot, the barrel had to be as cold as the last. Variations in the barrel's temperature will warp the metal. Taking into account the inconsistency in the ammunition, it would be stupid to zero with a hot, or even warm barrel, since it would be cold when I took the shot.

That got the little sniper in my head ticking away. It reminded me that damp, humid air is thicker than dry, causing the bullet to drop faster. Hot air has the reverse effect because it is thinner, so offers less resistance and sends the bullet higher. What was I supposed to do on a very hot day in a very humid jungle? Fuck it, I'd leave it alone, I'd only just got rid of my headache, I didn't want it back. Five inches should be OK. I'd be confirming back at 300 anyway.

I took another shot and followed through, my point of aim staying on the circle.

My round still cut paper to the left, less than a quarter of an inch in from the first. The shots were well grouped, so I knew that the first round wasn't just a wild crazy one; the sight did need adjusting.

The birds were well pissed-off at being disturbed a second time, and I sat up and watched them as I waited for the barrel to cool. It was then that I saw Carrie making her way towards me from the rear of the house.

TWENTY-THREE

She was about 150 metres away, swinging a two-litre bottle of water in her right hand. I waved. As she looked at me and waved back, I got a flare of sunlight from her wraparounds. I sat back against the tree and watched her get nearer.

She looked as if she was floating above the heat haze.

When she got closer I could see her hair flick back and forth with each stride.

"How's the zero going?"

Tine, just off a bit to the left."

She held out the bottle with a smile. The condensation glistened on the plastic:

it had come straight out of the fridge. I nodded my thanks and stood up, catching my own reflection again in those fly's eye glasses of hers.

I sat back down against the tree, unscrewing the top.

She looked down, fingering her hair behind her ears.

"It's a real hot one today."

"Sure is." It was routine, the bullshit stuff that people exchange when they don't know each other, plus I was trying to keep her well away from any mention of last night. I got the bottle to my lips and took some long, hard swallows.

The plastic started to collapse in my fingers; I wasn't letting any air past the tight seal of my lips.

She stayed above me, hands on hips, in the same position as the Yes Man had taken a few days earlier, but without the attitude.

The sight might've taken some knocks over the months. I use the iron sights, they're never off anyone out here in the open is within their range."

I stopped drinking. There was a pop and a gurgle as air rushed into the vacuum and the plastic resumed its normal shape.

"Ever had to?"

Her glasses hid any clues her eyes might be giving away.

"Once, a few years back. These things can happen out here, you know." She put out her hand for the water.

I watched as she threw her head back and took five or six gulps above me, her throat moving with each swallow. I could hear the fluid going down, and see the muscles in her right arm tauten as she tilted the bottle. Her skin had a light sheen of moisture; on me it would just have looked like sweat.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Question. If it's just for protection, how come you're checking the scope?" She pointed into the jungle.

"No good in there, is it?"

I gave her my most disarming smile.

"As I said, I just like to be prepared, that's all."

"And is that down to your training, or down to you?" She hesitated. I wished I could see her eyes.

"How do you get to do this sort of thing?"

I wasn't sure I could explain.

"Want to help me?"

She caught my tone and went with it.

"Sure."

We took the few paces over to the grassy mound.

"Is silence your way of dealing with it, Nick? I mean, is silence the way you protect yourself from the things you need to do for your work?"

I saw my reflection as I tried to look through her lenses: she was smiling, almost taunting me.

"All I want you to do is aim dead centre into the black circle. I just want to adjust the sights."

"One shot zero, right?"

"Right."

"OK, tell you what you aim, you're stronger. I'll adjust."

I opened the bolt, ejecting the empty case, reloaded and applied Safe as we reached the mound.

"I want the same elevation."

She raised her eyebrow.

"Sure." I was telling her how to suck eggs Instead of supporting it with my left hand, I started to push the stock into the mud. Her sandals were inches from my face.

"Tell me when."

I looked up. Her sunglasses were now on the back of her neck with the arms facing forward and the black nylon retaining necklace dangling down on to her vest. Her huge green eyes were blinking to adjust to the light.

I started to pack mud around the stock: the weapon needed to be locked tight into position for this to work. Once that was done, I checked that the score marks were still in line on the sight, and aimed dead centre of the black circle.

"OK."

There was an "Affirmative' from above as she pushed down on the mound with her sandal led foot, compacting the earth around the stock as I held it firmly in position. My arms strained as I tried to keep the weapon in a vice-like grip to ensure the post sight stayed dead centre. I could have done this on my own but it would have taken a whole lot longer.

She had finished packing the soil over the weapon and I still had a good sight picture, so I told her this "On' and moved my head to the left so she could lean over and see the target through the sight. Our heads touched as her right hand moved on to the windage dial on the left side of the optic, and started to turn it. I heard a series of metallic clicks as she moved the post left until the point of aim was directly below the two rounds that I had fired, whilst remaining in line with the centre of the black circle.

It only took her fifteen seconds, but it was time enough for me to smell the soap on her skin, and feel the gentle movement of air as she controlled her breathing.

My breath stank after not brushing since Saturday, so I moved my lips to divert the smell away from us both as she clicked away. She moved her head back more quickly than I wanted her to and squatted on her knees.

"OK, done." I could feel the warmth of her leg against me.

I had to move my arm out of the way to drag my Leatherman out of my pocket and passed it up to her, glad that I'd cleaned it.

"Score it for me, will you?"

She opened out the knife blade and leant over to scrape a line from the dial on to the metal housing of the optic, so I'd be able to tell if the dial had been inadvertently moved, knocking the zero off.

Her vest was gaping in front of me as she worked and I couldn't stop myself looking. She must have seen me: I couldn't move the focus of my gaze quickly enough as she returned to her kneeling position.

"Who sprinkled you with horny dust?" There was a smile to go with her question, and she kept her big green eyes on mine, but her expression couldn't have given me a bigger no.

"Are you going to confirm?"

Pulling the weapon from the mud, I cleared my throat.

"Yeah, I suppose I'll annoy the birds again."

She stood up to get out of the way.

"Ooookay ..."

I recocked and went through the firing sequence, aiming at the centre of the circle and, sure enough, I pissed off the birds again big-time.

The zero was good; the round went in directly above the point of aim, roughly in line with the other two rounds to the left. At 300 the round should cut paper slightly above the circle, but I'd soon find out.

I was still looking through the sight when I felt Carrie's knees against my arm again.

"Is it OK?" I kept my eye on my shot, still checking. Teah, it's fine.

Dead on."

I ejected the round and moved my head away from the sight as she leant over to pick up the empty cases.

We stood up together and she walked back into the shade as I cleaned the mud off the rifle's furniture.

"If that wasn't a window to your mind, I don't know what is."

Maybe I should have worn her Jackie Os.

Tour eyes aren't as silent as your mouth, are they?"

I heard the metallic clink of the empty cases as she threw them into the ammo box. She sat down under a tree, crossing her legs.

I worked hard to think of something to say as I walked over to her.

"How did the house come to be here? I mean, it's a bit off the beaten track, isn't it?"

She picked up the bottle and took a swig as I settled down a few feet away. We faced each other and I took the water when she offered it to me.

"A rich hippie guy built it in the sixties. He came down here to escape the draft." The fly's eyes looked at me, and the smile stayed on her face as she fished out a tobacco tin and Zippo from her cargos.

"He swapped the forests of Vietnam for the forests of Panama. Apparently he was a real character, kept the dealers and bars in Chepo in business for over twenty years. He died maybe eight or nine years ago."

There was a pop as the tin opened, and she picked out one of the three or four ready-prepared roll-ups. She giggled to herself, showing a set of brilliant white teeth as she checked the cigarette was still intact. The lenses turned on me again and my reflection moved up and down with her shoulders as she started to laugh.

"Got killed by a logger's truck after a night hitting the bars. He staggered out into the road, trying to stop the truck from leaving, claiming that the wood belonged to the forest and it had spirit. Strangely enough, the truck seemed not to hear him, and that was that. Sawdust."

I laughed with her, seeing in my mind's eye the absurd contest of man versus truck. She flicked the Zippo deftly and lit up. The twisted end of the roll-up flared as she took a deep breath, held it, then slowly exhaled. An unmistakable smell filled the air between us. She chuckled to herself before finishing off the story.

"He was the one who had spirit, but unfortunately for him that night it was all in his bloodstream."

I took in more water as she turned her gaze once more to the building, picking bits of Rastafarian Old Holborn from her lips.

"He'd left the house and the land to the university, for research. We've been here nearly six years now. Cleared the land out back for the helicopter. Even put up the extension ourselves."

She turned back and offered me the joint.

I shook my head. If other people wanted to, that was up to them, but it was something I'd never even thought of trying.

She shrugged and took another drag. We can only do it out of the house so Luz doesn't catch us. She'd freak if she knew what Mommy was doing right now. Talk about role reversal." She inhaled deeply, her face screwing up as the smoke blew from her mouth.

"I suppose someone like you wouldn't do this, would you? Maybe you're worried you'll drop that guard of yours. What do you think?"

"Aaron told me you met at the university ..."

She nodded as I started to fill the magazine with more rounds.

"Eighty-six.

Without him I'd never have had the stamina to get my Ph.D. I was one of his students."

She looked at me and smiled expectantly, obviously well used to the reaction to her announcement. I probably fell in with the one she anticipated.

Her tone challenged me.

"Oh, come on, Nick, have you never been attracted to an older woman?"

Teah, Wonder Woman, but that was when I was the same age as Luz."

I'd made her laugh, though maybe the giggle weed had a little to do with it.

"Half the university staff ended up marrying a student. Sometimes they had to divorce one student to set up with another but, hey, why should the course of true love run smoother in a faculty building than any other place?"

I sensed it was a well-rehearsed explanation of their relationship.

"Staying here to study while the folks went back up north and got divorced was great," she went on.

"You know, straitlaced Catholic family gone wrong the rebellious teenage years, father not understanding that sort of stuff." Her glasses pointed my way and she smiled, maybe thinking about those good times as she took another drag. There's even a kind of convention about sleeping with your teacher, you know. Not exactly as a rite of passage, more a visa stamp, proof you've been there. Someone like you would understand that, no?"

I shrugged, never having known anything about what went on at those places, but now wishing I did.

She picked up the fully loaded rifle that lay between us. The bolt was back and she checked chamber before laying the weapon across her knees, then slowly moved the bolt forward to pick the top round out of the magazine, feeding it into the chamber. But instead of locking down the bolt as you would to fire, she pulled it back so the brass round was ejected from the chamber with a clink and into the grass. Then she pushed the bolt home again to repeat the action.

"How does Luz fit in here?" Even as I started to speak I knew I'd fucked up, but it was too late to stop the flow.

"She isn't your natural child, is she?"

She might have been: she could have had her with somebody else. I was crashing and burning here. I tried to recover. I didn't mean that, what I mean is, she isn't-' She laughed and cut in to save me.

"No, no, you're right, she isn't. She's kind of fostered."

She took a long, reflective drag and looked down, concentrating on the slow ejection of another round as it flew out of the chamber on to the rough grass. I couldn't help but think of Kelly and what my version of fostering had added up to these past three or four years.

"She was my dearest and only friend really, Lulu ... Luz is her daughter ... Just Cause." She looked up sharply.

"You know what that is?"

I nodded. Not that she could see me: she was already looking down again. The invasion. December 'eighty-nine. Were you both here?"

She pulled back the bolt on the third round and shook her head slowly and sadly from side to side.

"No one can imagine what a war is like unless they witness one. But I guess I don't need to tell you that."

"Mostly in places I can't even pronounce, but they're all the same wherever they are shit and confusion, a nightmare."

The fourth round tumbled out of the weapon.

"Yep, you're right there. Shit and confusion ..." She picked one up and played with it between her fingers, then took another puff of the spliff, making it glow gently.

Her head was up now but I couldn't tell if she was looking at me or not as she blew out smoke.

"Months before the invasion things were getting really tense.

There were riots, curfews, people getting killed. It was a bad, bad situation only a matter of time before the US intervened, but nobody knew when.

"My father kept wanting us to move north, but Aaron wouldn't have any of it this is his home. Besides, the Zone was only a few miles away, and whatever happened out here, in there we'd be safe. So we stayed."

She dropped the round on to the ground, picked up the water and took a long swig, as if she was trying to wash away a bad taste.

"On the morning of the nineteenth, I got called by my father telling us to get into the Zone because it was going down that night. He was still in the military then, working out of

DC."

She had a moment to herself and gave a fleeting smile.

"Knowing George, he was probably planning it. God knows what he gets up to. Anyways, he'd arranged accommodation for us in Clayton." She took another swig, and I waited for the rest of the story.

She put down the bottle and got the last out of her herbal roll-up before stubbing it out into the ground, then picking up another round to fiddle with.

"So we moved into the Zone and, sure enough, we saw enough troops, tanks, helicopters, you name it, to take on Washington state." She shook her head slowly.

"That night we lay in bed, we couldn't sleep you know what it's like.

Then just past midnight the first bombs hit the city. We ran out on to the deck and saw bright sheets of light filling the sky, then the sound of the explosions just seconds behind. They were taking out Noriega's headquarters, just a few miles from where we were standing. It was terrible they were bombing El Chorrillo, where Lulu and Luz lived."

TWENTY-FOUR

Her voice was devoid of emotion now, her body suddenly still.

"We went back inside and turned on the radio for news. Pan National had music, and about a minute later there was an announcement saying that Panama was being invaded, and alerting the Dingbats."

"Dingbats?"

The Dignity Battalions Noriega's private army. The station was calling them to arms, calling for everybody else to go on the streets and defend their country against the invaders, all that kind of crap. It was a joke nearly everybody wanted this to happen, you know, get Noriega out.

"We left the radio on, and turned on the TV to the Southern Command station. I couldn't believe it, they hadn't even interrupted the movie! Aaron got totally freaked out. We could still hear the bombing outside."

I was listening intently, taking the occasional sip of water.

"The Defense Department seal soon filled the screen on all the Pan channels, and a voice came on telling everybody in Spanish to stay indoors and keep tuned in.

And that's exactly what we did. Not that they told us much apart from "Everything's fine, just stay calm." Soooo, eventually we went back out on the deck, and watched more explosions. They were coming from all parts of the city now. There were jets zooming around in the dark, sometimes coming so low we could see their afterburners.

"This carried on until maybe about four, and then it all went quiet, apart from the jets and helicopters. We really didn't know what to do or think1 was worried for Lulu and Luz.

"At dawn, the sky just seemed to be filled with helicopters, and smoke coming out from the city. And there was this huge plane, constantly circling. In the end, it was there for weeks."

The way she described it, it was probably a Spectre gunship: those things can operate day or night, it doesn't matter; it's always a clear day for them. They would be up there, in support of the ground troops, acting like airborne artillery. They have infrared and thermal imaging cameras that can pick out a running man or a square inch of reflective tape from thousands of feet up. They have onboard computers, controlled by operators who are protected inside a titanium cell, to help them decide whether to use their 40mm and 20mm cannons or machine-guns, or if the shit was really hitting the fan below, a 105mm howitzer artillery piece sticking out the side.

Carrie continued talking, telling me about the Dingbats looting, raping, destroying everything in their path as they tried to escape the Americans. For her and Aaron it wasn't until the day after Christmas that they went back to their house near the university.

"It was fine ..." She smiled fleetingly again.

"It wasn't even looted, though some of the locals had been out making the most of the opportunities elsewhere. Somebody had stolen a whole lot of Stetsons from a store suddenly there were about thirty guys in the neighbourhood thinking they were John Wayne."

I smiled at the image, but her face was soon serious again.

"The place was an occupation zone, checkpoints, troops, they were everywhere. We were so worried about Lulu and Luz, we went to El Chorrillo to check them out.

It looked like a newsreel of Bosnia. There were bombed-out buildings, troops with machine-guns cruising round in armoured vehicles with loudspeakers." She mimicked their words: "Merry Christmas, we're soldiers from the United States of America. We're going to be searching your houses very soon, please leave your doors open and sit in the front part of your home. You will not be harmed.

Merry Christmas." It was so surreal, like a movie or something.

Her face was suddenly drained.

"We got to Lulu's walk-up and it was just a heap of rubble. Her neighbours told us she'd been inside. Luz had been sleeping over at Lulu's sister's place in the next block. That was bombed, too, and the sister had been killed, but there was no trace of Luz. It was terrible, looking for Luz after that. I had that feeling, you know, that frantic feeling like when you think you've maybe lost a child in a crowd. The idea of her walking around the streets without anyone to protect her, you know, look after her. Do you know that feeling?"

I thought of last night's dream. I knew that feeling all right.

We found her eventually in one of the reception camps, in a creche area with all the other parent less kids. The rest is kind of history. From that day till this, we've looked after her." She sighed. We loved Lulu so much."

I'd been slowly nodding ever since her question, listening, but troubled by my own thoughts.

"I have lost friends," I said.

"All of them, really. I miss them too."

"Lonely without them, isn't it?" She picked up the last of the water and offered me a share, waiting for me to continue. I shook my head and let her finish it. I wasn't going to let that happen.

"Do you think the US did the right thing?" I asked.

The bottle was back in her mouth for a couple of sips.

"It should have come earlier. How could we just sit and watch Noriega the deaths, torture, corruption? We should have done something sooner. When the word was out that he had turned himself over to the US, there were horns sounding all over the city.

There was a lot of partying that night." An edge of bitterness crept into her voice.

"Not that it's done any good. With the stand-down from the Zone, we've given everything away." She retreated into her own thoughts for a second or two and I just watched her face get sadder. At length she looked up.

"You know what, Nick? Back then, something happened that I'll never forget. It changed my life."

I carried on looking at her and waiting as she finished the water.

We were back in our house and it was New Year's Day, nearly two weeks after the invasion. I was watching TV with Luz in my arms. Barbara Bush was in the audience of some show and a group on stage started to sing "God Bless America". The whole audience stood up and joined in. Just at that moment, a helicopter flew low over us, right over the house, and I could still hear the giant plane circling overhead and I started to cry. For the first time it made me feel so proud to be American."

A tear ran down her cheek from behind her sunglasses. She made no attempt to wipe it away as another followed.

"But you know what? I feel so sad for us now that we could just give away everything down here that people died for back then. Can you understand that, Nick?"

Yes, I understood, but I never went there. If I did, I wasn't sure that I could navigate my way out again.

"I met a guy called Johnny Applejack, a Delta Force captain, in 'ninety-three.

Well, that's what we called him ..." I told her about his patrol going into a Panamanian government office during the first night, and finding three million dollars there, in cash. The only reason all six of the team weren't now driving Porsches was that Johnny radioed it in without thinking about what he was doing.

"It was only after he got off the air that he realized he'd just kissed goodbye to the patrol retirement fund. I don't know what he's like now, but back in 'ninety-three he looked as if his lottery numbers had come up and he'd just realized he'd forgotten to buy a ticket."

She smiled.

There was a pause I was aching to fill as I watched her place her index fingers under her glasses and give each eye a wipe. But I'd done the damage I'd wanted to: I'd broken the spell.

I pointed at the weapon still across her lap as I got to my feet.

"Coming back to three hundred?"

"Why not?"

I waited as she got up. Her dark lenses zeroed in on me again.

"The other stuff getting too close for you, Nick?"

I turned and started counting off another two hundred paces in my head, with her at my side. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight.

I filled the space with business.

"I've been thinking. I need to be back at Charlie's by four tomorrow morning, so I'll have to leave here at ten tonight and we're going to need to work out how I can return this." I held up the weapon.

"I presume you'll want it back?"

Thirty-nine, forty, forty-one.

"Sure do, it's the only present my father ever gave me that had any use. We'll work it out."

I realized I'd lost the count. I started at forty-five as Carrie's f sunglasses turned to me.

"Do you know how you're going to do it yet you know, give him a reminder?" Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four.

"I've had one or two thoughts ..."

Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. I looked out at the clearing, then had another.

"You got any explosive left?

I saw the pictures, on the cork board." Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five.

'You are nosy, aren't you?"

She pointed towards the far treeline that faced the rear of the house. There's a stash of the stuff down there in the shack."

I was amazed.

"You mean you've just left it there? In a shed?"

"Hey, come on. Where are we? There's more to worry about round here than a few cans of explosives. What do you want it ' for, anyway?"

"I need to make a lot of noise to remind him."

I couldn't see any outbuildings, just greenery: because of the downhill slope the bottom third of the treeline was in dead ground.

"Do you know how to use it? Oh, of course stupid."

"What kind is it?"

She pulled a face.

"It goes bang and blows up trees, that kind. George and some of the local guys played with it."

I'd lost count again. I was guessing eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, then Carrie stopped to announce: "First one hundred."

She pointed towards the dead ground.

"I'll take you down there after we've-' "Mom! Mom! Grandpa wants to talk!" Luz was yelling for her from the rear of the house.

Carrie put her hands to her mouth.

"OK, baby." She sounded quite concerned as she put down the bottle and ammo box.

"I've got to go."

She emptied her pockets of the tobacco tin and Zippo then threw them into the ammo box. She turned to me and smiled.

"She'd ground me."

Jogging out into the sun to cover the two hundred metres or so to the house, she pointed once more towards the invisible hut in the treeline.

"You can't miss it.

Later."

I left everything where it was and headed for the trees at the bottom of the cleared patch, keeping in the shade of the lot I was under. The hut didn't come into view for a while, and even when it did I couldn't face walking out into the sun to cut the corner. The heat haze that shimmered above the ground wasn't exactly inviting: I was a sweaty mess already.

I scratched away at my back and followed the shade of the tree-line round two sides of the square, eventually getting to what looked like a wooden outdoor privy. The door hung precariously on the lower rusty hinge and grass grew high right up against the door. Spiders' webs were spun all over the hut as if forming a protective screen. I looked through the gap in the broken door, but didn't see a toilet. Instead I saw two square, dull metal boxes with red and black stencilling.

This was a gift from heaven: four tin boxes, eight kilos in each. I couldn't understand the Spanish, but made out what was important: it contained 55 per cent nitroglycerine, a high proportion. The higher the amount of nitro, the more sensitive it is; a high-velocity round would easily detonate this stuff as it passed through, which wouldn't have been the case with military standard high explosive, which is shockproof.

I wrenched open the door and stepped inside. Pulling off the opening key from the side of the top box, I saw the date on the pasted-on label, 01/99, which I presumed was its Best Blown-up-by date. This stuff must be old enough to have been used when Noriega was in nappies.

I got to work, peeling the sealing strip of metal just below the lid exactly as if I was opening a giant can of corned beef.

A plan was already forming in my mind to leave a device by Charlie's gates. If I couldn't drop the target as he moved outside the house, I could take him out while his vehicle waited for the gates to open by getting a round into this shit, instead of him. My fire position would have to be in the same area I'd been in yesterday to ensure a good view of the pool and the front of the house, as well as the road going down towards the gate. I'd have to rig the device so it was in line of sight of the fire position, but I couldn't see that as a problem.

Sweat was gathering on my eyebrows. I wiped it as it was about to drip into my eyes and pulled back the lid of the tin container to reveal the inner wooden box liner. I cut the string banding with my Leatherman and lifted that too. I found five sticks of commercial dynamite, wrapped in dark yellow grease proof paper, some stained by the nitro, which had been sweating in this heat for years. A heavy smell of marzipan filled the air and I was glad I was going to work with this stuff outdoors. Nitroglycerine can damage your health, and not just when it's detonated. It won't kill you when you handle it, but you're guaranteed the mother of all fearsome headaches if you work with it in a confined space, or if you get it into a cut or it's otherwise absorbed into the bloodstream.

I took three of the eight-inch sticks and wandered back to the firing point, following the shade of the treeline once more, pulling back the grease proof paper as I walked to reveal sticks of light green Plasticine-type material.

Minute grey crystals of dried-out nitro coated the surface. Passing the weapon and ammo box, I continued the other two hundred paces to the target area, where I placed them side by side at the trunk of the thickest tree I could find near my paper targets. Then, back at the two-hundred point, I got into my firing position and took a slow, deliberate shot at the black circle.

The zero was good: it went in directly above the one-shot zero round I'd fired just as it should.

Now came the acid test, both for the zero and HE (high explosive). Picking up the ammo, weapon and bottle, I took another hundred paces to roughly the 300yard mark, lay down, checked the area to make sure Carrie or Luz hadn't decided to take a wander from the house towards the target area, then aimed at the sternum-sized target of green dynamite.

When I was sure my position and hold were correct, I had one last check around the area.

"Firing, firing!" The warning shout wasn't necessary, since no one else was about, but it had become a deeply ingrained habit from years of playing with this kit.

Aiming centre of the sternum, I took a slow, controlled shot.

The crack of the round and the roar of the explosion seemed to be as one. The earth surrounding it was dried instantly by the incredible heat of rapid combustion, turned into dust by the shock-wave, and sent up in a thirty-foot plume. Slivers of wood were falling all around the high ground like rain. The tree was still standing, and so it should be considering the size of it, but it was badly damaged. Lighter-coloured wood showed like flesh beneath the bark.

"NIIICK! NIIICK!"

I jumped up and waved at Carrie as she ran from the back of the house.

"It's OK ! OK! Just testing."

She stopped at the sight of me and screamed at the top of her voice, easily covering the ground between us.

"YOU IDIOT! I THOUGHT1 THOUGHT-'

Cutting abruptly from her screams, she turned and stormed back inside.

Luckily there was no need to do anything more: the zero was on for all ranges, and the dynamite worked. All I had to do now was make a charge that'd take out a vehicle.

Clearing the weapon, I picked up all the other bits and pieces and headed back to the house.

TWENTY-FIVE

The mozzie screen slammed shut behind me and I felt the sweat start to cool on my skin in the breeze from the two fans by the coffee table.

I headed straight for the fridge, dumping the weapon and ammo box on the way.

The light didn't come on when I opened the door, maybe some tree-hugging measure to save power, but I could still see what I was looking for another couple of two-litre plastic water-bottles like the one we'd emptied. The long gulps of chilled water tugged at my throat and gave me an instant headache but was worth it. I refilled the bottle I'd brought in from the garden-hose tap marked D and put it back in the fridge.

My T-shirt and trousers were still sticking to me, and the rash on my back was itching big-time. I got the cream out of my pocket and gave it a good smear all over. There was no point to welling myself off in this humidity.

After washing my gooey hands and face and throwing a couple of bananas down my neck, it was time to start thinking about the device I was going to make with the HE. With the half-empty water-bottle in my hand, and Carrie's giggle weed and Zippo in my pockets, I knocked on the door of the computer room as I entered.

Carrie was sitting in the director's chair on the left with her back to me, bent over some papers. The sound of the two overhead fans filled the room, a loud, methodical thud-thud-thud as they spun on their ceiling mounts. The room was much cooler than the living area.

The PC with the webcam was switched off; the other in front of Carrie showed a spreadsheet full of numbers, and she was comparing the data on her papers with what was on the screen.

It was Luz who saw me first, seated at her desk further down the room.

Swivelling in her chair to face me, she gave a "Booom!" with a big smile spread over her face and an apple in her hand. At least she thought it was funny. I shrugged sheepishly, as I had so many times to Kelly when I'd messed up.

"Yeah, sorry about that."

Carrie turned in her seat to face me. I gave her an apologetic shrug too. She nodded in return and raised an eyebrow at Luz, who just couldn't stop smiling. I pointed at the storeroom. I'm going to need some help."

"Gimme a minute."

She raised her voice to primary-school level and wagged a finger.

"As for you, young lady, back to work."

Luz got back down to it, using her thumb and forefinger to tap the pencil on the table in four-four. She reminded me so much of Kelly.

Carrie hit a final few keys on the PC and stood up, instructing Luz as she did so, still in schoolmistress mode, "I want to see that math sheet completed by lunchtime, young lady, or no food for you again!"

There was a smile and a resigned "Oh, Mooom, pleeeease ..." in return, and she took a bite from her apple as we headed for the storeroom.

Carrie closed the door behind her. The outside entrance was open, and I could see the light fading on the rows of white tubs. The sky was no longer an unrelenting blue; clouds were gathering, casting shadows as they moved across the sun.

I passed over the tin and the Zippo and received a smile and a "Thanks' as she placed a foot on a bottom shelf and climbed up to hide them under some battery packs.

I'd already spotted something I needed and was picking up a cardboard box that told me it should be holding twenty-four cans of Campbell's tomato soup, but in fact had only two. Wanting just the box, I took out the cans and stacked them on the shelf.

It was Little America up on these shelves, everything from blankets and shovels to eco-friendly washing-up liquid, via catering packs of Oreos and decaf coffee.

"This is like WalMart," I said.

"I was expecting more of a wigwam and incense sticks."

I got a laugh from her as she jumped off the shelf and walked towards the outside door.

I looked at her framed in the doorway as she gazed out at the lines of white tubs, then walked over to join her, carrying the water and soup box. We stood together in the doorway for a few moments, in silence but for the generator humming gently in the background.

"What exactly do you do here?"

She pointed to the tubs and ran her hand along their regimented lines.

"We're searching for new species of endemic flora ferns, flowering trees, that sort of thing. We catalogue and propagate them before they disappear for ever." She stared at nowhere in particular, just into the far treeline, as if she was expecting to find some more.

That's very interesting."

She faced me and smiled, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

"Yeah, right."

I actually was interested. Well, a bit.

"I don't believe you, but it's very kind of you to pretend. And actually, it is very interesting..." She waved her arms towards the tubs and the sky above them, now dark with clouds.

"Believe it or not, you're standing at the front line of the battle to save bio diversity

I gave her a grin.

"Us against the world, eh?"

"Better believe it," she said.

We looked at each other for less than a second, but for me it was half a second longer than it should have been. Our eyes might have been locked, but there was no way of telling behind her glasses.

"A hundred years from now, half the world's flora and fauna will be extinct. And that, my friend, will affect everything: fish,

birds, insects, plants, mammals, you name it, simply because the food chain will be disrupted. It's not just the big charismatic mammals that we seem to fixate on," she rolled her eyes and held her hands up in mock horror, 'save the whales, save the tiger ... It's not just those guys, it's everything." Her earnest expression suddenly relaxed and her face lit up.

"Including the sandfly your eye has already gotten acquainted with." The smile didn't last.

"Without the habitat, we're going to lose this for ever, you know."

I moved outside and sat on the concrete, putting the soup box down beside me and untwisting the bottle top. As I took a swig she came and sat beside me, putting her glasses back on. As we both stared at the rows of tubs, her knee just touched mine as she spoke. This rate of extinction has only happened five times since complex life began. And all caused by a natural disaster." She held out a hand for the bottle. Take dinosaurs. They became history because of a meteorite crashing into the planet about sixty-five million years ago, right?"

I nodded as if I knew. The Natural History Museum hadn't been where I spent my days as a kid.

"Right, but this sixth extinction is not happening because of some external force, it's happening because of us the exterminator species. And there ain't no Jurassic Park, we can't just magic them back once they've gone. We've got to save them now."

I didn't say anything, just looked into the distance as she drank and a million crickets did their bit.

T know, you're thinking we're some kind of crazy save-the-world gee ks or whatever, but-' I turned my head. 'I don't think anything like that-' "Whatever," she cut in, her free hand up, a smile on her face as she passed the bottle.

"Anyway, here's the news: all the plant life on the planet hasn't been identified yet, right?"

"If you say so."

We grinned at each other.

T do say so. And we're losing them faster than we can catalogue them, right?"

"If you say so."

"I do. And that's why we're here, to find the species that we don't know of yet. We go into the forest for specimens, cultivate them, and send samples to the university. So many of our medicines come from those things out there in the tubs. Every time we lose a species, we lose an option for the future, we lose a potential cure for HIV, Alzheimer's, ME, whatever. Now, here's the cool part. You ready?"

I rubbed the bandage on my calf, knowing it was coming regardless.

The drug companies provide grants for the university to find and test new species for them. So, hey, go figure, we have a form of conservation that makes business sense." She nodded in self-approval and got busy cleaning her nails.

"But despite all that, they're closing us down next year. Like I said, we're doing great work, but they want quick results for their buck. So maybe we're not the crazy ones, eh?"

She turned once more to gaze out towards the tubs, her face no longer happy or serious, just sad. I was quite enjoying the silence with her.

I'd never had the tree-hugging case put to me like that before. Maybe it was because it came from her, maybe it was because she wasn't wearing an anorak and trying to ram it down my throat.

"How do you reconcile what you do here with what you're doing for me? I mean, the two don't exactly stand together, do they?"

She didn't turn to face me, just kept looking out at the tubs.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Apart from anything else, it's helped me with Luz."

"How's that?"

"Aaron's too old to adopt, and it's so complicated trying to get things done here." I thought for a moment that she was going to blush.

"Soooo, my father came up with the offer of a US passport for her, in exchange for our help that's the deal. Sometimes we do wrong things for right reasons isn't that true, Nick whatever-your-name-is?" She turned to me and took a deep breath.

Whatever was about to be said, it changed, and she gazed back out over at the treeline as a swarm of sparrow-sized birds took flight and chirped in frantic unison.

"Aaron doesn't approve of us doing this. We fight. He wanted to keep hassling for an adoption. But there's no time, we need to head back to Boston. My mother went to live there again after the divorce. George stayed on in DC, doing what he's always done." She paused, before going off at a tangent.

"You know, it was only after the divorce that I discovered how powerful my father is. You know, even the Clintons call him George. Shame he didn't use some of it to save his personal life. It's ironic, really. Aaron's like him in so many ways ..."

"Why go after so long because you're being closed down?"

"Not only that. The situation is getting worse down here. And then there's Luz to think about. Soon if 11 be high school, then college. She's got to start having a normal life. Boyfriends who double-date, girlfriends who talk about you behind your back, that kind of stuff..." She smiled.

"Hey, she wants to go, like yesterday."

The smile soon died but her voice wasn't sorrowful, just practical.

"But Aaron Aaron hates change just like my father. He's just hoping all the troubles will go away." Her head tilted up and back as the flock of birds screeched by, inches above the house. I looked up as well, and tracked them across the sky.

She sighed.

"I'll miss this place."

I knew I was supposed to say something, but I didn't know what. I felt that the mess I'd made of my own life didn't exactly qualify me to help sort out hers.

"I love him very much," she said.

"It's just that I've gradually realized I'm not in love with the man, I guess ... Oldest cliche in the book, I know. But it's so difficult to explain. I can't talk to him about it. It's ... I don't know, it's just time to go ..." She paused for a moment. I could feel the blood pumping through my head.

"There are times when I feel so terribly lonely."

She used both hands to put her hair behind her ears then turned towards me.

There was a silence between us again as the pulse in my neck quickened, and I found it difficult to breathe.

"What about you, Nick?" she said.

"Do you ever get lonely?"

She already knew the answer, but I couldn't help myself... I told her that I lived in sheltered housing in London, that I had no money, had to line up to get free food from a Hari Krishna soup wagon. I told her that all my friends were dead apart from one, and he despised me. Apart from the clothes I was wearing when I arrived at their house, my only other possessions were in a bag stuck in Left Luggage at a railway station in London.

I told her all this and it felt good. I also told her the only reason I was in Panama was that it would stop a child being killed by my boss. I wanted to tell her more, but managed to force the lid back on before it all came flooding out.

When I'd finished, I sat, arms folded, feeling uncertain, not wanting to look at her, so just stared out at the tubs again.

She cleared her throat. The child ... is that Marsha or Kelly?"

I spun my head round and she mistook my shock for anger.

"I'm sorry, sorry ... I shouldn't have asked, I know. It's just I was there, I was with you all night, I hadn't just appeared ... I was going to tell you this morning, but we both got embarrassed, I guess ..."

Fuck, what had I said?

She tried to soften the blow.

"I had to stay, otherwise you would have been half-way to Chepo by now. Don't you remember? You kept on waking up shouting, trying to get outside to look for Kelly. And then you were calling out for Marsha. Somebody had to be there for you. Aaron had been up all night and he was out of it. I was worried about you."

The pulse was stronger now and I felt very hot. What else did I say?"

"Well Kev. I thought it was your real name until just now and-' "Nick Stone."

It must have sounded like a quiz-show quick fire answer. She looked at me a moment, a smile returning to her face.

"That's your real name?"

I nodded.

Why did you do that?"

I shrugged, not too sure. It had just felt right.

When I spoke next, it was as if I was in a trance. As if someone else was doing the talking, and I was just hearing them from a distance.

"The girl's name is Kelly. Her mother was Marsha, married to my friend, Kev. Aida was her little sister. They were all murdered, in their house. Kelly's the only one left. I was just minutes too late to save them. She's why I'm here she's all I have left."

She nodded slowly, taking it all in. I was vaguely aware that the sweat was now leaking more heavily down my face, and I tried to wipe it away.

"Why don't you tell me about her?" she said quietly.

"I'd love to hear about her."

I felt the pins and needles return to my legs, felt the lid forcing itself open, and I had nothing left to control it.

"It's OK it's OK, Nick. Let it out." Her voice was cool, soothing.

And then I knew I couldn't stop it. The lid burst open and words crashed out of my mouth, hardly giving me time to breathe. I told her about being Kelly's guardian, being totally inconsistent, going to Maryland to see Josh, the only sort of friend I had left, people I liked always fucking me over, signing Kelly over permanently to Josh's care, Kelly's therapy, the loneliness... everything.

By the end, I felt exhausted and just sat there with my hands covering my face.

I felt a hand gently touch my shoulder.

"You've never told anybody that before, have you?"

I shook my head, letting my hands fall, and tried to smile.

"I've never sat still long enough," I said.

"I had to give the therapist a few details about the way Kev and Marsha died, but I did my best to keep the rest of it pretty well hidden."

She could have been looking right through me. It certainly felt that way.

"She might have helped, you know."

"Hughes? She just made me feel like a like a like an emotional dwarf." I felt my jaw clench. 'You know, my world may look like a pile of shit, but at least I sometimes get to sit on top of it."

She gave me a sad smile.

"But what's the view like from your pile of shit?"

"Not a patch on yours but, then, I like jungles."

"Mmm." Her smile widened.

"Great for hiding in."

I nodded, and managed a real smile this time.

"Are you going to keep hiding for the rest of your life, Nick Stone?"

Good question. What the fuck was the answer?

I stared at the tubs for a long while as the pins and needles disappeared, and eventually she gave a theatrical sigh.

"What are we going to do with you?"

We looked at each other before she got to her feet. I joined her, feeling awkward as I tried to think of something, anything, to say that would prolong the moment.

She smiled again, then clipped me playfully across the ear.

"Well, then, recess over, back to work. I have some math to check."

"Yes, right. I need one of your tubs1 think I saw some empties near the sinks."

"Sure, we're maxed out. They won't be needed soon, anyway." The smile was still there, but it had become rueful.

I held up the box.

"I'm going to play with that explosive down in the shack for a while, and I promise, no more bangs."

She nodded. That's a relief," she said.

"I think we've both had quite enough excitement for one day." She turned towards the storeroom but then paused.

"Don't worry, Nick Stone, no one will know about this. No one."

I nodded a thank-you, not just for keeping quiet, as she headed for the storeroom.

"Carrie?"

She stopped and half turned once more.

"OK if I have a mooch around in the stores and take some stuff with me? You know, food and equipment for tonight."

"For sure, but just tell me what you've got so we can replace it, OK? And, of course, nothing that can identify us like that." She pointed at the soup box, which had a white sticky label saying "Yanklewitz 08/14/00', probably the heli delivery date.

"No worries."

She gave that rueful smile again.

"As if, Nick Stone."

I watched her disappear into the store before heading round the corner towards the sinks, then got to work. I peeled off the label in three stubborn bits, which went into one of the glasses. Then, after getting a drink from the D hose and refilling my bottle, I wandered across the open ground to the shack" swinging the tub I'd just collected in one hand, the box and water-bottle in the other, trying to think about nothing except the job. It was hard. She was right, I did have worries, but at least I hadn't gob bed off about who the real target was.

The clouds were gathering big-time. I'd been right not to be fooled by the sun this morning. Just as I reached the gentle incline and started to see the roof of the hut, I heard a succession of short bursts from a vehicle's horn and looked back. The Mazda was bumping along the track, and Luz was running out to greet her dad. I stood watching for a while as he jumped out of the wagon to be hugged and talked to as they walked on to the veranda.

Sitting in the still humid shade of the hut, I tore off the top and bottom flaps of the Campbell's box, scrunched them up in the bottom of the tub, and was left with the main carcass, a four-sided cube, which I ripped apart at a seam and opened out so that I had one long, flat section of cardboard. I started fitting it into the tub, running it round the edges then twisting it until I'd made a cone with its apex about a third of the way up from the bottom, with all the scrunched-up flaps beneath. If I let it go now the cone shape would spring apart, so I started to pack HE, still in its wrappers, around the base to keep it in place. Then, with the cone held fast, I peeled open the other boxes, unwrapped more HE and played with the putty-like substance, packing it into the tub and around the cone.

I was trying to make a copy of the French off-route mine. These are the same shape as the tub, but a little smaller, and designed so that, unlike a conventional mine, they don't have to be directly beneath the target when detonated to destroy it. It can be concealed off to one side of a road or track, hidden in the bushes or, as I was planning, up a tree. It's a handy device if you're trying to mine a metal road, say, without having your goodies laid out for everyone to see.

One version of the mine is initiated by a cable as thin as a strand of silk that's laid over the tarmac and crushed. I was going to detonate it with a round from the Mosin Nagant.

Once triggered, the manufactured ones instantly turn a cone of copper into a hot, molten slug, the shaped charge, propelling it at such speed and power that it penetrates the target's armour and rips its insides apart. I didn't have any copper; in its place,

and shaped very much the same way, was the cardboard cone, but there should be enough force in the HE alone to do the job required of it.

I continued squashing down the HE, trying to make it one solid mass over the cone. My hands stung as the glycerine got into my cuts, and my headache was back, really giving me the good news.

Thinking about the old German guy who'd given me the bayonet gave me the idea of using the explosive this way. He'd told me a story about the Second World War.

German Paras had taken a bridge, stopping the Brits from demolishing it as they withdrew. The charges were still in position, but the Germans disconnected the detonators so that a Panzer column could cross and kick the shit out of the Brits. A young British squaddie took one shot with his bog standard Lee Enfield 3O3 rifle at the placed charges. Because it was old-style explosive, just like this stuff, it detonated, and set off all the other charges that were connected by the det (detonation) cord. The whole bridge dropped, stopping the Panzers ever getting through.

As I packed the last of the HE, I was hoping that the squaddie had at least got a couple of weeks' leave as a reward, but I very much doubted it. Probably just a tap on the tin hat with a riding crop and a "Jolly well done, that man', before getting killed a few weeks later.

When I'd finished, I sealed the top on the tub, left the device in the shed, and started back to the house, thinking about what else I had to prepare for a possible four nights on the ground.

The sky had turned metallic, the clouds every shade of grey. A gentle breeze was the only consolation.

There was a loud rumble of thunder in the distance as I crested the slope. Aaron and Carrie were standing by the sinks, and I could see they were arguing again.

Carrie's arms were flying about and Aaron was standing with his head jutting forward like a rooster.

I couldn't just stop and go back: I was in no-man's land here. Besides, my hands were stinging badly with the nitro and I needed to wash it off, and to get some aspirin down my neck. Dihydrocodeine would do the job better, but I needed to be awake later tonight.

I slowed down, lowered my head, and hoped they'd see me soon.

They must have spotted me out here in the open ground, looking everywhere and anywhere apart from the washing area, because the arms stopped windmilling.

Carrie went to the storeroom door and disappeared as Aaron dried himself.

I got to him as he retied his hair, clearly embarrassed.

"Sorry you had to see that."

"None of my business," I said.

"Besides, I'll be gone tonight."

"Carrie told me you'll need dropping off ten, right?"

Nodding, I released the water pressure and soaked my hands before cutting the supply and soaping up to get all the nitro off me.

"You said you had a map? Is it on the bookshelf?"

"Help yourself, and I'll get you a real compass."

He passed me to hang the green towel next to mine on the line.

"You feeling better now? We were worried."

I started to rinse off.

"Fine, fine, must have picked something up yesterday.

How's the jaguar?"

"They promised they're going to do something this time, maybe the 700, but I'll believe it when I see it." He hovered awkwardly for a moment, then said, "Well, Nick, I'm heading to go catch up on some work here. It's been sort of backing up on me this week."

"See you later, mate."

I pulled my towel off the line as he headed for the storeroom door.

TWENTY-SIX

Now that the sky had greyed over completely the storeroom was almost dark. I eventually found the string-pull for the light and a single fluorescent strip flickered on, dangling precariously from wires about six feet from the high ceiling.

The first thing I saw was that the weapon and ammunition had been placed on a shelf for me, along with a Silva compass and map.

I needed to make some 'ready rounds', so ripped about six inches off a roll of one-inch gaffa tape, placed a round on the sticky side, and rolled. As soon as the round was covered I placed another, rolled a little, then another, until four rounds were in a noiseless bundle, easy to fit into my pocket. I folded over the last two inches of tape to make it easier to pull apart, then started on another. A box of twenty was still going into the bergen; you never know how these jobs are going to end up.

I rummaged around in the medical case for the aspirin and threw two down my neck. They were helped on their way with a litre bottle of Evian I broke from a new case of twelve, and I lobbed three on to the cot for later.

My leg was starting to hurt again but I really couldn't be bothered to change the dressing. I'd be wet and covered with mud later tonight anyway, and the aspirin would help.

I had to prepare for as much as four nights in the field up to two on target and two in the jungle before popping out once the dust had settled and making my own way to the airport. Come what may, I needed to make Josh's by Tuesday.

I found an old A-frame bergen in the storeroom, its green canvas patchy with white haze after years of exposure to the elements. Joining the bergen and water on the cot went nine cans of tuna and an assortment of honey sesame bars that looked as if they'd get me through daylight hours.

Judging by what was on the shelves, they had certainly got their hands on enough of that military give-away. I grabbed a poncho and some dark green mozzie nets.

I could make a shelter from a poncho with the hood tied up and a couple of metres of string through the holes at each corner, and the mosquito nets would not only keep the beasties off me at night, but also act as camouflage netting.

I took three one for protection, and the other two for camouflaging me and the tub once we were in position. A large white plastic cylinder in a tree, tilted down at the road the other side of the gate, just might arouse suspicion.

Most importantly, I found a gollock, an absolute necessity for the jungle because it can provide protection, food and shelter. No one worth their salt is ever without one attached to their body once under the canopy. This one was US Army issue and much sturdier than the one Diego had been swinging at me. It was maybe six inches shorter, with a solid wooden handle and a canvas sheath with a light alloy lip.

I climbed up the angle-iron framework of the shelves and, holding on to one of the struts, checked out the goodies higher up. Next door, Luz suddenly sounded very pleased with herself.

"Yesss!" Baby-G told me it was 3.46 probably her schoolwork ending for the day. I wondered if she was aware of the arguments Aaron and Carrie had had about her. What did she know about what was happening now? If they thought she didn't know what was going on, they were probably kidding themselves if she was anything like Kelly she never missed a trick.

For a second or two my thoughts wandered to Maryland: we were in the same time zone, and right now Kelly would probably be doing the same as Luz, packing up her books. It was private, individual, and expensive, but the only way forward until she had adapted between the one-on-one attention she'd been receiving in the clinic and the push and shove of mainstream education alongside Josh's kids. I had a flash of worry about what would happen now that I wasn't going to make the second half of the money then remembered that that was the last thing to be concerned about.

I realized what I was doing and made the cut. I had to force myself to get on with the job wrong, the mission.

I knew what kit I wanted, which wasn't very much. I'd learnt the lesson the hard way, just like so many holiday makers who take five suitcases with them, only to discover they only use the contents of one. Besides food and water, all I needed was the wet clothes I'd be standing up in, plus a dry set, mozzie net, lightweight blanket and hammock. All this would be kept scrupulously dry in plastic in the bergen, and by the poncho at night. I already had my eye on the string hammock on the veranda if I didn't find anything better.

None of these things was absolutely essential, but it's madness to choose to go without. I'd spent enough time in the jungle on hard routine in places like Colombia, so close to the DMP that no hammock or poncho could be put up, sitting all night in the shit, back to back with the rest of the patrol, getting eaten alive by whatever's flying around or mooching over you from out of the leaf litter, not eating hot food or drink for fear of compromise due to flame and smell, while waiting for the right day to attack. It doesn't help if you're spending night after night like that with all your new insect mates, snatching no more than a few minutes' sleep at a time. Come first light, bitten to death and knackered, the patrol still has to get on with its task of watching and waiting.

Some patrols lasted for weeks like that, until trucks or helicopters eventually arrived to pick up the cocaine and we hit them. It's a fact that these conditions degrade the effectiveness of a patrol as time goes on. It isn't soft to sleep under shelter, a few inches above the shit rather than rolling around in it, it's pure common sense. I wanted to be alert and capable of taking that shot as easily on the second day as on the first, not with my eyes swollen up even more because I'd been trying to hardcore it in the shit the night before. Sometimes that has to happen, but not this time.

I carried on rooting around, climbing up and down the shelves like a howler monkey, and was so happy to find the one thing I was desperate for, its clear thick liquid contained in rows of baby-oil-style plastic bottles. I felt like the thirsty Arlington Road winos must feel when they find a half-full bottle in the bin, especially when the label said it was 95 per cent proof. Diethyl-mtoluamide - I just knew it as Deet was magical stuff that would keep the little mozzies and creepy-craw lies away from me. Some commercial stuff contains only 15 per cent, and is crap. The more Deet the better, but the problem is it can melt some plastics -hence the thickness of these bottles. If you get it into your eyes it hurts; I'd known people have their contact lenses melt when it had been brought into contact with them by sweat. I threw three bottles on to the cot.

After another ten minutes of digging in boxes and bags, I started to pack the bergen. Having removed the noisy wrappers from the sesame bars and put them all into a plastic bag, they got stuffed into the large left-hand side pouch for easy access during the day. I shoved a bottle of Evian into the right-hand one for the same reason. The rest of the water and the tuna went into the bottom of the pack, wrapped in dishcloths to muffle any noise. I'd only pull that food out at night when I wasn't in my fire position.

I put a large plastic laundry bag into the long centre pouch at the front of the bergen. It would be taking any dumps I did whilst I was in the jungle: I'd have preferred individual bags, but couldn't find any, so one big one would have to take the lot. It was important not to have any smell or waste around me because that would attract animals and might compromise my position, and I didn't want to leave anything behind that could be DNA'd.

Into a similar clear plastic bag went the mozzie net I was going to use for protection at night, and one of the blankets that was out of its wrapping. The hammock would join the contents of this bag once I'd nicked it from the veranda later on. All the stuff in this bag needed to be dry at all times. Into it also would go my dry clothes for sleeping in, the same ones I'd wear once out of the canopy and heading for the airport. I'd get those from Aaron at the same time I got the hammock.

I laid the other two mozzie nets beside the bergen, together with some four-inch wide, multicoloured nylon luggage straps. Black, brown, in fact any colour but this collection would have been better to blend into a world of green. I placed them inside the top flap, ready to make a sniper seat. The design originated in India during the days of the Raj, when the old sahibs could sit up in a tree in them for days with their Lee Enfields, waiting for tigers below. It was a simple device, but effective. The two straps were fixed between two branches to form a seat and you rested your back against the trunk. A high viewpoint looking down on to the killing area makes for a great field of view because you can look over the top of any obstructions, and it would also be good for concealment as long as I tucked the mozzie net under it, to hide the rainbow holding up my arse.

I sat on the cot, and thought about other stuff I might need. First up was a shade for the front of the optic sight, so that sunlight didn't reflect off the objective (front) lens and give away my position.

I got a container of antifungal powder, again US Army issue, in a small olive green plastic cylinder. Emptying the contents, I cut off the top and bottom, then split it down the side. After wiping away all the powder on the inside, I put it over the front of the sight. It naturally hugged the metal cylinder as I moved it back and forth until the section protruding in front of the lens was just slightly longer than the lens's width. The sunlight would now only reflect off the lens if the sun itself was visible within my field of view.

Next I needed to protect the muzzle and working parts from the rain, and that was going to be just as easy. I fed a plastic bag over the muzzle and taped it to the furniture, then loaded up with rounds, pushed the bolt action forward to make ready the weapon, and applied the safety.

I ripped open the bottom of one of the clear plastic bags that had held the blankets, so only the two sides were still sealed, then worked it over the weapon like a hand muff until it was covering the sight, magazine and working parts, using the gaffa tape to fix each open end to the furniture. Then, making a small slit in the plastic above the sight, I pushed it down so that the sight was now clear, and gaffa-taped the plastic together underneath to keep the seal. Everything in that area, bar the sight, was now encased in plastic. The weapon looked stupid, but that didn't matter, so did I. The safety could still be taken off, and when the time came I could still get my finger into the trigger by breaking the plastic. If I needed to fire more than one round, I'd just quickly rip the bag to reload. This had to be done because wet ammunition and a wet barrel will affect the round's trajectory -not a lot, but it all counts. I'd zeroed this weapon with a dry, cold barrel and dry ammunition, so it had to stay like that to optimize my chances of a one-round kill.

Next, I used the clear plastic from the last of the blankets on the shelf to protect the map, which said it had been compiled by the US Army's 551st Engineer Company for the Panamanian government in 1964. A lot would have changed on the ground since then Charlie's house and the loop road being just two of them.

That didn't concern me too much; I was interested in the topographical features, the high ground and water features. That was the stuff that would get me out of there when I needed to head towards the city.

The compass still had its cord on, so I could just put it over my head and under the T-shirt. What it didn't have was any of its roamers for measuring off scale:

mozzie repellent had already been on this one and the plastic base was just a frosted mess. I didn't care, as long as the red needle pointed north.

The map, compass, gollock and docs would stay on my body at all times once under the canopy. I couldn't afford to lose them.

The last thing I did before getting my head down was thread the end of a ball of twine through the slit drilled into the butt designed to take a webbing or leather sling, and wrap about four foot of it round the butt, cut it and tie it secure. The weapon would never be over my shoulder unless I was climbing a tree.

Only then would I tie the string into the slit in the stock and sling it.

I pushed everything that was left off the bed, and gave the light cord a tug. I didn't want to see the others; it wasn't that I was feeling antisocial, just that when there's a lull before the battle, you get your head down.

Lying on my back, my hands behind my head, I thought about what had happened with Carrie today. I shouldn't have done it. It was unprofessional and stupid, but at the same time, it felt OK. Dr. Hughes had never managed to make me feel like that.

I was woken suddenly. I snapped my wrist in front of my face to check Baby-G, and calmed down: it was just after a quarter past eight. I didn't need to get up until about nine.

The rain played a low, constant drumroll that accompanied the low thud of the fans next door as I rubbed my greasy, clammy head and face, pleased that there hadn't been any more dreams.

The canvas and alloy frame of the cot squeaked and groaned as I turned gently on to my stomach, running through my bergen list. It was then, just now and again above the sound of the rain and fans, that I heard some conspiratorial-sounding murmurs1 should know, I'd done enough of that stuff.

The cot creaked as I slowly swung my feet over the side and stood up. The sound was coming from the computer room, and I felt my way towards the door. A sliver of light from beneath it guided me.

I put my ear to the wood and listened.

It was Carrie. In a whisper she was answering a question I hadn't heard: "They can't come now ... What if he sees them? ... No, he knows nothing, but how am I going to keep them apart? ... No, I can't... He'll wake up ..."

My hand reached for the door handle. Gripping it tightly, I opened the door slowly but deliberately no more than half an inch to see who she was talking to.

The six-inches-by-six, black-and-white image was a little jittery and fuzzed around the edges, but I could clearly see whose head and shoulders were filling the webcam. Wearing a checked jacket and dark tie, George was looking straight into his camera.

Carrie was listening via the headphones as his mouth moved silently.

"But it wouldn't work, he won't buy that... What do you want me to do with him? ... He's next door asleep ... No, it was just a fever ... Christ, Dad, you said this wouldn't happen ..."

George was having none of it and pointed at her through the screen.

She answered angrily.

"Of course I was ... He likes me."

In that instant I felt as if a giant wave had engulfed me. My face began to smart and burn as I rested my head on the door-frame. It was a long time since I'd felt so massively betrayed.

I knew I shouldn't have opened up to her, I just knew it.

You've screwed up big-time ... Why can you never see when you're getting fucked over?

"No, I've got to go get ready, he's only next door ..."

I didn't have the answer to this, but I knew what I had to do.

When I pulled the door open Carrie was clicking away at the keyboard. She jumped out of her seat with shock, the headset wire jerking tight as the headset pulled down round her neck and the screen closed down.

She recovered, bending forward to take them off.

"Oh, Nick -sleep better?"

She knew, I could see it in her eyes.

Why didn't you see the lying in them before?

I'd thought she was different. For once, I'd thought... Fuck it, I didn't know what I'd thought. I checked that the living-room door was closed and took three paces towards her. She thought she was about to die as I slapped my hand hard over her mouth, grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of her head, and lifted.

She let out a whimper. Her eyes were bigger than I'd ever thought eyes could be.

Her nostrils snorted in an attempt to get some air into her lungs. Both her hands were hanging on my wrists, trying to release some of the pressure from her face.

I dragged her into the darkness of the storeroom, her feet scarcely touching the ground. Kicking the door shut so that we both became instantly blind, I put my mouth right up to her left ear.

"I'm going to ask questions. Then I'm going to let go of your mouth and you'll answer. Do not scream, just answer."

Her nostrils were working overtime and I made sure I pressed my fingers even harder into her cheeks to make me seem more scary.

"Nod if you understand."

Her hair no longer smelt of shampoo: I could only smell coffee breath as she gave a succession of jerky nods into my hands.

Taking a slow, deep breath, I calmed down and whispered into her ear once more.

Why are you talking to your dad about me? Who is coming?"

I released my grip from her mouth a little so she could suck in air, but still gripped her hair. I felt her damp breath between my fingers.

"I can explain, please, just let me breathe-' Both of us heard the noise of a wagon approaching as it laboured up the muddy track.

"Oh, God, oh, please, Nick, please just stay in here. It's dangerous, I'll explain later, please."

I hit the light and it started to flicker above us as I grabbed the weapon from the shelf, ripped the plastic from the bolt and rammed the two bundles of ready rounds into my pockets.

She was still begging as the engine got louder.

"Please stay here, don't leave the room I'll handle this."

I moved to the exit door.

"Fuck you turn the light off, now!"

The roar of the engine was right on top of the house. I stood at the door with my ear pressed against the corrugated iron.

"Lights!"

She pulled the switch.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I eased the door open a couple of inches. With one eye pressed against the gap, I looked to the right, towards the front of the house. I couldn't see a wagon, just the glow of headlights bouncing off the veranda through the rain.

I slipped through the door and closed it gently behind me, leaving Carrie in the darkness. Turning left, I made for the washing area just as two vehicle doors slammed in quick succession, accompanied by a few overlapping shouts not aggressive, just communicating. I guessed the language was Spanish, though I couldn't tell from this distance, and didn't really care.

As soon as I'd rounded the corner I set off in a straight line towards the shack in the dead ground, using the house as cover. I didn't look back. With the weapon gripped tightly in my right hand and my left holding down the ready rounds, I just went for it, crouched low, doing my best to keep my footing in the mud and tree stumps in the darkness.

I moved for maybe two hundred wet and muddy metres before risking a glance back.

The house was silhouetted in the glow of headlights, and the engine noise had faded. I turned and moved on; another twenty paces and the lights, too, slowly disappeared as I gradually dropped down into the dead ground, heading towards the hut.

Turning right, I ran for the other treeline. The back of my throat was dry and I swallowed constantly, trying to moisten it as I fought to get my breath back. At least I was out of the immediate danger area.

Once I'd got about half-way towards the trees I turned right again and started moving up the crest, back towards the house, my Timber lands squelching in the mud and pools of water. I'd been concentrating so hard on what I was doing that I hadn't realized the rain had stopped: it was the racket of the crickets that made me aware.

I slowed when I was maybe a hundred and fifty metres behind the house, and started to move more cautiously, now with the butt of the rifle in my shoulder, placing each foot carefully, keeping my body as low as possible. There was still complete cloud cover, and I felt confident I could get closer.

My angle of view gradually changed. I could see the glow coming from the side bookcase window, not strong enough to reach the ground, and then the area in front of the veranda, caught in the headlights of a large 4x4 parked next to the Mazda. On the roof, upside down and strapped on tight, I could see a Gemini, an inflatable rubber boat.

I knew there were tubs in front of me somewhere and I'd be bumping into them soon. Slowing even more, I crouched as low as my legs could bend. The low revs of the engine became audible as I finally reached the rows of white plastic. I got on to my knees and right hand and, with the weapon balanced in my left, moved like a gorilla between the rows. I made three or four movements, then stopped to observe. A small animal rustled nearby and scuttled away between the tubs, which were less than an inch apart. I could hear frenzied scratching on plastic as it ran for its life.

Making sure I didn't get tangled in the irrigation tubes trailing along the ground, I carried on feeling my way through the grass and mud. The noise of the crickets was horrendous, but with luck drowned out any sound I made.

I was starting to get sticky again from a combination of tension and sheer physical effort as I inched forward. The scene on the veranda slowly came into focus: I was about eighty metres away and could see two male figures with Carrie. All three were bathed in light and shadow. One man was quite a bit shorter than the other, and all I could see of him was his dark-checked shoulders, each side of a supporting pillar. He looked as though he had skipped a good few sessions with his personal trainer.

There seemed to be no weapons involved, and I couldn't hear their voices.

Keeping the weapon in my left hand and out of the mud, I eased myself down into a fire position between the tubs, making my movements as slow and deliberate as possible. Gloop immediately began to soak into my front.

The safety catch clicked gently as I twisted it to the right and got a blurred sight picture owing to the rain on the lenses.

Carrie's head filled half the optic through a haze of cigarette smoke, with moths fluttering around the light on the wall behind her. I focused on her face, trying to read it. She didn't look scared as she spoke, just serious.

More smoke blew into my sight picture from the left. I panned and picked up the taller of the two men taking another drag of his cigarette before speaking. He was Latino, round-faced, with a crew-cut and rough-looking beard, and wearing a black collarless shirt. I panned down to see muddy green fatigue bottoms tucked into equally dirty boots. He was quite animated, pointing first at Carrie, then at the shorter man. Something was wrong: I didn't need to lip-read Spanish to know that.

The movements stopped and he looked at Carrie again, expecting some sort of answer. I panned right, on to her. She nodded slowly, as if not too happy with what she was agreeing to, and I followed her as she pulled open the mozzie screen and shouted into the house, "Aaron! Aaron!"

I looked over at the vehicle. Moths, and anything else airborne, were jiggering about in the headlights. It was a CMC, its block shape high off the ground and its body work splattered with mud. All the doors were closed and the engine was still running, probably for the air.

The mozzie screen squeaked and slammed shut. I aimed back towards the veranda and saw Aaron. There weren't any greetings for him: Carrie just spoke to him for less than a minute, then with a nod he went back into the house, a worried-looking man. Carrie and the other two followed. Black Shirt threw his finished butt on to the veranda decking. The check-shirted guy carried an aluminium briefcase that I hadn't seen until then.

He, too, was looking rough, with a patchy bum-fluff beard over his chubby face.

I watched as they passed the bookshelf window, heading towards the computer room. There was nothing else to do now but wait.

All of a sudden, to my left, there was a flash in my peripheral vision. I turned to see the last of a match burning in the dark of the CMC's interior, its yellow light illuminating the two dirt-free semicircles on the windscreen.

I brought the weapon back into the aim, and saw a bright red glow from the rear seat. Some long, hard drags were being taken in there. I ran the optic down the side windows of the CMC, but couldn't tell whether or not they were blacked out until another drag was taken. That wasn't long in coming; I couldn't see anything from the side apart from a gentle red triangular glow in the rear door window. It had to be the CMC from the locks. What was the chance of the same VDM? Another long, deep drag illuminated the triangle.

I watched as the cigarette was sucked to death, and the glow disappeared, then slowly brought my weapon out of the aim, resting it on my forearms to keep it out of the mud. At that moment, the rear door furthest from the veranda opened and a body stepped out. I slowly lifted the weapon back into the aim, at the top half of a man taking a piss. I recognized the long features and nose, even without the CMC.

This wasn't good, not good at all. The Pizza Man had been at the locks; the locks were on the webcam here. He had been at Charlie's; I was on my way there now. He knew George; George knew about me. No, this definitely wasn't good.

The mozzie screen squeaked, followed immediately by the two guys stepping down from the veranda as he jumped back into the wagon mid flow The little fat one was still clutching his briefcase. Carrie followed them out but stayed on the veranda, hands on hips, and watched as Blackshirt threw what was left of a cigarette into the mud before they both climbed in.

The engine revved and headlights flooded the area around me as the wagon turned.

I hugged the ground, waiting for the light to wash over me, then got on to my knees and watched and listened as the engine noise and tail-lights faded back into the jungle.

Pulling myself out of the mud, I applied Safe and moved towards the house. As I let the mozzie screen slam back into position, I could see Aaron and Carrie both in Luz's room, comforting her in bed. Neither looked round as I went to the fridge and pulled off the black-and-white beach picture of the Pizza Man. The round magnet keeping it in place dropped and rolled across the wooden floor. I stopped, had second thoughts. There had to be a reason for him not wanting to be seen. Could I make the situation worse for myself if I told them, and they told George? Maybe even jeopardize the job altogether?

I found the magnet and replaced the photograph. I took a deep breath, calmed down and thought business as I headed for the storeroom. The light was on now, and I placed the weapon gently on the cot as Carrie came into the computer room, sat at the PCs, and buried her head in her hands. I closed the door behind her.

Tell me."

She just held her face as if in another time and space as the fans thudded above us. She looked very scared as her face came up to look at me, pointing out towards the veranda. This whole thing is creeping me out have you any idea how crazy those people are? I hate it when they come, I hate it."

"I can see that, but who are they?"

They work for my father. They're doing some sort of operation against PARC, on the Bayanyo somewhere. It's part of Plan Colombia. ' She wasn't just scared but physically shocked. Her hands trembled as she brushed her hair back behind her ears.

"It's a drugs-surveillance thing .. . we have the relay board for their communications. It's secure, so it comes through us, then to George. He said to keep it from you for operational security."

"So why did they break OP SEC by coming when I was here?"

"The webcam ... they're monitoring ships suspected of drug-trafficking on the canal. I was told to close it down before you arrived, but I forgot. Good spy, huh?"

She looked a sorrowful sight, eyes puffed up and red.

"Make Daddy proud. It seemed that when I eventually did close it down, it messed up their other communications, something to do with the relay." She pointed to the mass of wires under the tables.

"They had to come and fix it. That's what George was telling me when you came in. We didn't want it to get mixed up with the job he's sent you to do-' "Hold on your dad sent me?"

"Didn't you know? He's controlling both operations. Nick, you must believe me, this really is the first time we've done anything like this."

I moved from pissed-off to depressed very quickly. It was just like old times. I sat in the other chair as she sniffled herself back to normality. Aaron came into the room, his eyes darting between the two of us, trying to assess the situation.

She looked up at him, eyes red, wet and swollen.

"I've told him," she said.

"I've told him everything."

Aaron looked at me and sighed.

"I've always hated this. I told her not to get involved." It was as if he was talking to me about our child.

He turned his attention to Carrie.

"George should never have gotten you into this. It isn't worth it for what you want, Carrie. There has to be another way."

This was anger, his lips were wet, but it didn't last long. Taking two paces forward, he threw his arms around her, stroking her head when she laid it against his stomach, making soothing sounds, just as I imagined he'd done with Luz and I used to do with Kelly.

I stood up and walked back into the living room, following my own mud trail back towards the veranda. The mesh door squeaked open and I joined the mozzies by the wall light as I threw the pillows on to the floor and started untying the hammock, feeling quite sorry for both of them, and Luz.

I was very clear about what was happening a total gang fuck Everything she'd said would have made sense, if it weren't for the Pizza Man. If he had seen Aaron at the locks, or even the

Mazda, it made sense why he'd bolted so quickly: if Aaron and Carrie didn't know he was on the ground, then of course he didn't want to be seen by them. I was tempted to tell her, to pump her for more information on him, but no. That would stay in my pocket in case I needed it especially as there was still the question of his going to Charlie's that I couldn't work out.

I undid the knot at the end attached to the hook in the wall and let it fall, then started on the thick rope wrapped round one of the veranda's supports. The other tie fell to the floor, and I left it and stepped off into the mud.

What now?

I opened up the back of the Mazda and saw in the light from the veranda that everything had been packed into an old canvas bag. I dragged out the blue towrope, which reeked of petrol, and walked back towards the house.

I still hadn't answered the question: What now?

I stepped up on to the veranda and peered through the mesh into the house. Aaron couldn't be seen but Carrie was still in the director's chair, bent over, arms on her thighs, studying the floor. I watched her for a few moments as she rubbed her hair before dabbing her eyes.

As I bent down to gather up the hammock I realized what I was going to do about it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I didn't have the luxury of doing anything other than I'd come here to do: keep Kelly alive.

I had to keep mission-orientated; that was the only thing I had to concentrate on. Fuck everything else. My sole focus had to be keeping the Yes Man happy: he was the one who could fuck life up big-time for both of us, not whatever was going on down here.

I cut away from all extraneous thoughts and mentally confirmed what my whole life should have been about since Sunday. The mission: to kill Michael Choi. The mission: to kill Michael Choi.

With the hammock and tow-rope gathered in my arms I pulled the mozzie screen open just as Aaron tiptoed out of Luz's darkened bedroom and gently closed the door. He put his hands together against the side of his face as he walked towards me.

I kept my voice low.

"Listen, I didn't know anything about Carrie, her dad, or any of the other stuff until today. I'm sorry if life is shit, but I've come to do a job and I still need to be taken to do it."

He rubbed his face so hard that the bristles rasped, and drew a long, deep breath.

"You know why's she doing this, right?"

I nodded, shrugged, tried to get out of it, and failed.

"Something to do with a passport, something like that?"

"You got it. But you know what? I think she would have done it anyway. No matter how much she hates to admit it, she's just like George, takes the Stars and Stripes gig to the max, know what I mean?"

He placed a hand on my shoulder and forced a smile. I nodded, not really having a clue what the fuck he was on about, and not really wanting to explore it further.

There was a pause before he withdrew his hand and held up his wrist to show his watch.

"Anything you need?" He was right: it was nearly ten o'clock, time to go.

There is. I put all of that explosive from the hut in one of your tubs, and I've left it down there."

'You taking it with you?"

I nodded.

He took another of his deep breaths, trying hard not to ask why. It seemed there were other things apart from the move north that Carrie didn't talk to him about.

"OK, gimme five."

We parted, him to his bedroom and me back to the storeroom. Carrie was still sitting on the director's chair, her elbows on the desk, cradling her head. I left her to it and packed the hammock and other stuff into the bergen.

The mozzie screen squeaked and slammed as Aaron left to collect the device.

Remembering that I still needed dry clothes, I went back to the computer room.

"Carrie?" There was no reply.

"Carrie?"

She slowly lifted her head as I walked into the room, not looking too good, eyes and cheeks red. Things had changed: I felt sorry for her now.

"I need some more clothes." I pulled at my mud-covered sweatshirt.

"A complete set of stuff."

It seemed to take her a second to understand what I was saying.

"Oh, right." She stood up. 'I'll, um ..." She coughed to clear her throat as she left the room.

"Sure."

I rummaged around under the cot and shelves for more thin polythene blanket wrappers. With several ripped ones in my hands, I picked up the rifle and checked chamber by pulling the bolt up and back slightly to expose the brass case and head of the round. I already knew it was there, but it made me feel better to see it and know that when I fired I wouldn't just hear a dead man's click. Satisfied, I swathed the muzzle and working parts in polythene again, completing the seal with tape before checking the muzzle protection was still intact.

Carrie reappeared with a thick brown cotton shirt and matching canvas trousers.

She never seemed to provide socks or underwear; maybe Aaron didn't use them.

They went into the protective plastic in the bergen, which I then closed down with the other two mozzie nets on top.

She watched as I checked my leg. The bandage was covered with mud but that didn't matter; the important thing was that there was no sign of leakage.

I gave my trousers a good squirt of Deet before tucking them into my very smelly socks, then doused them as well. Once I'd finished the front I got to work on my forearms, my hands, all round my neck and my head, even getting it into my hair.

I wanted to be armour-plated with the stuff, and I'd go on replenishing it all the time I was on the ground. I carried on squirting it over my clothing and rubbing it in. Anywhere that wasn't covered in mud got the good news. I threw her one of the bottles as she stood, zombie-like.

"Do my back, will you?"

It seemed to snap her out of her trance. She started rubbing it roughly into my sweatshirt.

"I'm taking you."

"What?"

"It's my job, I'll take you. I'm the one who wants the passport."

I nodded. I didn't want to get involved and talk more about it. We had done enough of that. All I wanted now was the lift.

The rubbing stopped.

"We ought to be going."

The half-used bottle appeared over my shoulder.

"But first I want to tuck my child in."

She walked out, and I packed all the Deet bottles in the top flap and started to wrap the weapon in the blanket for protection, not too sure if I was looking forward to the ride or not.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The atmosphere was strained as Carrie and I shook around in the cab, following the beam as it bounced off the jungle around us. The wet foliage shone as if it had been coated with varnish.

For several kilometres her eyes had been fixed on the section of track carved out by the lights, trying to negotiate the ruts that rocked us rhythmically from side to side. I let my head wobble but kept a hand on the rifle between my knees to protect the zero.

We eventually emerged from the forest and passed through the valley of dead trees. At last she cleared her throat.

"After all that we have said to each other ... this doesn't need to change things, Nick."

"Yeah, well, we all make mistakes."

"No, Nick, it wasn't a mistake, I need you to believe that. What you said means something. I'll never abuse that trust."

"Is that why you told your dad I had a fever?"

"Like I said, no one ever need know. I don't lie, Nick."

Thanks."

"Am I forgiven?" She glanced at me to check that she really was before her eyes darted back to the track as we tilted left.

"Can't your dad just give Luz a passport? Surely he can sort that out?"

"Sure he can, I know that. But he knows I'm desperate. I've never gotten anything from him for free. I always had to earn it first. It was only going to be for locating the relay board. Then it got worse, some food and stores, a few gallons of two-stroke. They didn't want to go to Chepo in case they got recognized, I suppose ... Then you came along."

I sat and watched her as her eyes concentrated on the driving but her mind was elsewhere.

"Aaron was right. He told me that once it started it'd never stop, he'd keep using me. You know what? Maybe he's right, but as soon as the passport comes we'll be out of here."

"You'll go to your mum's? Boston?"

"She's got a house in Marblehead, on the coast. I have a job waiting at MIT and Luz is set for school."

What's the score with your dad? I can't work out if you hate him, love him or what."

T can't either. Then, sometimes, I even get a little jealous of the attention he gives Luz, and others I think he only does it to keep an eye on me."

Still concentrating on the road, it seemed it was her turn to open up.

"I never knew who he really was, what he really did. He just went away, came back sometimes with something he'd pick up for me last minute, normally something totally unsuitable. Then he left again as soon as I'd gotten used to him being around. Mom just waited till I'd left for university and she left, too. He's a cold man, but still my father."

I tapped the muzzle.

"He gave you this."

She turned for a second and a fleeting smile came to her lips.

"His way of saying he loves you, maybe?"

"Maybe, but maybe it was only because he forgot to pack it when leaving the Zone after his tour."

"Aaron said you're very much like him something about stars and stripes?"

She laughed: this was obviously well-trodden ground.

"Aaron only thinks that because, for once, I agree with George on what's gone wrong in this country. Aaron's too stubborn to see it, that's why he wants to stay. He's hoping for a brighter future but it ain't coming on its own. The Zone as he remembers it has gone. We, America, let that happen. It's disgusting."

"You guys could come back if the canal was threatened.

Isn't there a clause in the treaty, something in the small print?"

"Oh, yeah, sure like the Russians are going to invade. I'm not planning my future around it."

"What's the big deal? After all, you lot gave the thing back, didn't you?"

She bristled.

"No Carter did."

We nearly hit the roof as the wagon bounced out of a rut deeper than it had looked.

"We built the canal, we built the country. Geographically, it's virtually part of the US coastline, for Christ's sake. People like Lulu died for it and that peanut-munching inadequate threw it away like a Kleenex." She paused.

"Do you really want to know why it's such a big deal?"

I nodded.

"Why not?"

"OK, there are two major problems to address." Her right index finger sprang upwards from the bucking steering-wheel.

SOUTH COM drugs interdiction and eradication capability is now about a third of what it used to be before 'ninety-nine. In short, it's history. People like Charlie and PARC are getting a free run. Unless action is taken, and quickly, we lose the drugs war for ever.

If you think there's a problem now, watch this space." She shook her head in disbelief at her countrymen's folly.

"You know what I mean, don't you?"

I did. I'd got to know quite a few of the victims these last few months.

"So, the only answer was what Clinton did throw a billion plus at Plan Colombia, with troops, hardware, all to kick ass down there. You know what Plan Colombia is, right? Of course, stupid, sorry."

The suspension creaked and things rattled under the wagon as she fought with the wheel.

"Without the Zone, we had no alternative but to project further south, take the fight to them in their backyard."

I was studying the red glow on the side of her face as she concentrated on the track.

"But it ain't going to work. No way. We're just getting dragged into a long, costly war down there that's going to have little impact on the drug trade."

Her eyes, still fixed on the way ahead, gleamed with conviction. Her father would have been proud of her, I was sure.

I'm telling you, we're getting pulled into their civil war instead of fighting drugs. Soon it'll spread into Venezuela, Ecuador and all the rest. This is Vietnam the Sequel. Because we have given away the Zone, we have created a situation where we now need it more than ever. Crazy, no?"

It made sense to me.

"Otherwise it'll be like launching the D-Day invasion of France from New York?"

She gave me a smile of approval, between fighting the ruts.

"Panama's going to be needed as a forward operating area from which to project our forces, as well as a buffer to stop the conflict spreading into Central America. What Clinton has done is a very dangerous alternative, but without the Zone and what it stands for, he had no choice."

We lapsed into silence again as she negotiated the last bit of track and we finally hit the road to Chepo.

"And the most scary, fucked-up thing of all is that China now runs the canal.

When we left, it created a power vacuum that China's filling. Can you imagine it? Without one shot being fired, Communist China is in control of one of the United States' most important trade routes, in our backyard. Not only that, we actually let the very country that could back PARC in the war take control."

I could see now what Aaron had been on about.

"Come on, it's just a Hong Kong firm who got the contract. They run ports worldwide."

Her jaw tightened as she gritted her teeth.

"Oh, yeah? Well, ten per cent of it is owned by Beijing they operate the ports at each end of the canal and some of our old military locations. In effect, we've got Communist China controlling fourteen per cent of all US trade, Nick can you believe we let that happen? A country that openly calls the US its number-one enemy. Since 1919 they have recognized the importance of the canal."

She shook her head bitterly.

"Aaron's right, I do agree with George, even though his politics have always been to the right of Attila the Hun."

I was starting to see her point. I'd never look at Dover docks in quite the same way again.

"Charlie was one of the group instrumental in pushing the Chinese deal. I wonder what his kickback was freedom to use the docks for business? And you know what? Hardly anyone knows up north the han dover deadline just sort of sneaked up on America. And Clinton? He didn't do a thing."

She didn't seem too keen on Democrat presidents.

The threat to the US is real, Nick. The hard reality is that we're getting dragged into a South American war because we gave away the canal to China. The Chinese, not us, are now sitting on one of the world's most important trade routes and they haven't paid a cent for the privilege. It's our bat and ball they're playing with, for Christ's sake."

I started to see pinholes of light penetrating the blackness ahead: we were approaching Chepo. I gave her a long, hard look, trying to figure her out as we rumbled over the gravel, and she kept glancing rapidly over at me, waiting for some kind of response.

"I guess this is where I fit in," I said. 'I'm here to stop Charlie handing over a missile guidance system to PARC so they can't use it against US helicopters in Colombia."

"Hey, so you're one of the good guys." She'd started smiling again.

That's not the way it feels." I hesitated.

"Your dad wants me to kill Charlie's son."

She jolted the wagon to a halt on the gravel, the engine ticking over erratically. I could now see her full face in red shadow. I couldn't make out whether the look in her eyes was shock or disgust. Maybe it was both. It soon became a mixture of confusion and the realization that I had been as economical with the truth as she had.

"I couldn't tell you because of OP SEC I tried to fight it but couldn't, the lid was still completely off.

"And also because I'm ashamed. But I've still got to do it. I'm desperate, just like you." I glanced out at the expanse of muddy, water filled potholes caught in the headlights.

"His name is Michael. Aaron teaches him at the university."

She slumped in her seat. The locks ... he told me about-' That's right, he's just a few years older than Luz."

She didn't respond. Her eyes joined mine, facing forward and fixed on the tunnel of light.

"So, now you have the misfortune of knowing all that I know." Still nothing. It was time for me to shut up and just look out at the illuminated mud and gravel as the wagon moved off. Then I turned and watched as she pursed her lips, shook her head and drove as if she was on autopilot.

TWENTY-NINE

Friday 8 September We'd hardly exchanged another word as we bounced around in the cab for the next couple of hours.

I finished getting the bergen out of the back and pulled back on the leaf sight as far as it would go to check that the battle sights were set at 400.

"Nick?"

I leaned down to the half-open window. Bathed by the red glow of the dash she was moving the blanket I'd thrown from the weapon, which had landed on the selector.

"Michael is dying to save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. It's the only way I can deal with it. Maybe it'll work for you."

I nodded, concentrating more on protecting the zero than trying to justify myself. Charlie should be getting the good news, not his boy.

"It's certainly going to save one, Nick. One that you love very much, I know.

Sometimes we have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, no?" She held my gaze for another couple of seconds, then glanced down at the selector. I wondered if she was going to look up again, but she chose Drive, and hit the gas.

I stood and watched the red tail-lights fade into the darkness, then waited the three minutes or so it would take for my night vision to start kicking in. When I could see where I was putting my feet, I tied the gollock around my waist, checked for the hundredth time that the map and docs were still secure in my leg pockets, and felt for the Silva compass that hung round my neck under my T-shirt. Then I shouldered my bergen, heaved the tub on top, and held it in place with a straight arm, my left hand gripping the handle. With the rifle in my right, I moved down to the road junction, then headed west towards the house.

I soon broke out in a sweat under the weight of the load, and could taste the bitterness of Deet as it ran into my mouth. Only three and a half hours of darkness remained, by the end of which I needed to be ready at the gate. As soon as it was light enough to see what I was doing, I needed to place the device and find a firing position in the opposite treeline. It was pointless trying to rig it up in darkness; I'd spend more time rectifying my mistakes at first light than if I'd just done it then in the first place.

The plan was so simple that as I pushed on, listening and looking for vehicles, there wasn't much to think about until I got there. My mind was free to roam, but I wasn't going to allow that. It was time for nothing else but the mission.

After a few changes of arm supporting the weight of the tub, I was finally at the gates. Keeping over to the right, in cover, I dumped the tub while I caught my breath. Ground-mounted perimeter lights illuminated the walls, making it look even more like a hotel. When eventually I looked through the railings of the gate, the fountain was still lit, and I could see the glint of light on a number of vehicles parked haphazardly in the drive beyond it. The gold side windows of the Lexus winked back at me.

The house was asleep, no light shining out, apart from the enormous chandelier, which sparkled through a large window that I took to be above the main entrance.

There wasn't going to be any finesse about this device, but it had to be set very precisely. As the vehicle moved through the gates, the force of the shaped charge had to be directed exactly where I wanted it. I would also have to make sure it was well camouflaged with the mozzie net.

I went back and collected the tub, then stumbled along the animal track that ran between the wall and the canopy. The wall ran out after just seven or eight metres, and at that point I moved a few feet back into the trees to wait for first light. There was no need to go further. Besides, some of Diego's traps might still be set.

Keeping the bergen on my back, I sat on the tub with the weapon across my legs to protect the zero, the plastic protection rustling gently each time I moved. I was just willing the mozzies to try to take a bite out of me now I was 95 per cent pure Deet, but they seemed to know better.

I changed my mind about keeping the bergen on. It wasn't serving any purpose and, besides, I wanted water from the side pouch. As I took slow sips I unstuck the T-shirt from my itchy chigger rash and gazed enviously at the house with its air-conditioning and refrigerators working overtime.

The occasional animal made a noise in the jungle as the mozzies still circled in holding patterns around me, sounding like kamikaze planes heading for my face before changing course after a sniff of what I had waiting for them.

Once I'd put the water back into the bergen I gave myself another rub down with the Deet, just in case they discovered a gap in the de fences The tiny bits of leaf and bark on my hands scrubbed against my face and stubble.

I sat, scratched my back, felt the fur on my teeth with my tongue, and wished I'd hit the fire press el three times when I'd had the chance.

About forty-five boring minutes later I began to see an arc of pale light rising above the treeline. It was going to be a dull one. The birds took their cue to get noisy, and the howler monkeys on the other side of the house woke up the rest of the jungle as if the crickets ever slept.

I began to make out a low mist lying on the mud of the clearing and, higher up, black and grey cloud cover. It would be good for me if the sky stayed overcast:

it meant no chance of sunlight reflecting off the objective lens.

Another ten minutes and light was penetrating the canopy. I could just see my feet. It was time to start rigging the device.

After rechecking the score marks on the sight, and that the battle sights were pulled back to 400, the kit went back on and I moved slowly towards the gate. I dropped the tub and bergen about two metres short of it, laying the weapon on the ground and not against the wall to avoid any chance of it falling.

It didn't take long to find a tree of the right height and structure to take the charge there were enough of them about. I took the nylon tow-rope out of the top flap pouch of the bergen, tied one end of it to the tub's handle and gripped the other between my teeth. The taste of petrol nearly made me gag while I looked up and worked out how to climb my chosen tree. My calf was throbbing painfully.

It was a noisy ascent but a time comes when you just have to get on with it, and now was the moment, before everybody in the house began to stir. Trapped water fell on to my head and I was drenched again by the time I reached my vantage point

At last I could just see over the wall towards the house, and to the other treeline to my half right, where the bottom couple of feet of the trunks were still shrouded in mist. My firing point was going to be somewhere along that treeline; it was maybe 300 metres away and the tub should be easy enough to find from that distance with the optic. I thought about placing a large leaf or two on top of the wall as a marker to guide me in, but it was too risky. If I could see it, so could anyone driving towards the gate. I had to assume they were switched on, and that anything unusual would be treated with suspicion. I'd just have to open my eyes and find it once I got into position.

I was still working out how I was going to strap the tub in position when I heard the noise of an engine start up in the driveway. I turned my head to look towards the source. The only things moving were my eyes and the dribble from the sides of my rope-filled mouth.

It was impossible to make out what was happening. There were no lights from any of the vehicles, just the low, gentle sound of a petrol engine ticking over.

I had to act. This might be the only chance I got.

I opened my mouth to release the rope, and almost fell as I scrambled down the trunk. Adrenaline surged as I grabbed the weapon and ran back to the end of the wall, frantically tearing at the plastic, trying to check the score marks, feeling for the ready rounds, feeling for my docs.

I dropped on to my right knee, brought the weapon up, and looked through the optic, gulping in deep breaths to oxygenate me for the shot, wiping the Deet sweat from my eyes before removing the safety.

An oldish guy moved around in the low light, the tip of a cigarette glowing in his mouth. He was wearing flip-flops, football shorts and a badly ripped dark polo shirt, and was wiping the night's rain and condensation off the sleek, black Lexus with a chamois leather. The engine must be running for the air, which meant he was expecting passengers soon.

I sat back on my right foot and braced my left elbow on my left knee, the soft bit just above the elbow joint jammed into the kneecap, butt pulled firmly into the shoulder. Then I checked my field of view into the killing ground.

There was no pain in my leg now, no feeling anywhere as I prepared myself mentally, visualizing the target coming from the front door, heading for either the rear or front of the Lexus.

Condensation formed on the lens.

I kept the weapon in the aim and, with both eyes on the killing ground, rubbed it clear with my right thumb and T- shirt cuff. All the time, taking slow, deep, controlled breaths, I was hoping it was going to kick off, and at the same time hoping that it wouldn't until I was in a better position.

The old guy made his way conscientiously along the wagon with his chamois. Then the two huge doors at the front of the house opened and I was aiming into a body, the chandelier back lighting him perfectly. The post sight was in the middle of a white, short-sleeved shirt-and-tie, one of the BG, either Robert or Ross, whichever had gone out for the drinks. He was standing in the door frame, talking on his Nokia and checking progress with the wagon.

My heart-rate soared, then training kicked back in: I controlled my breathing and my pulse started to drop; I blocked out everything around me, closing down into my own little world. Nothing else existed, apart from what I could see through the optic.

The BG disappeared back into the house but the front door was still open. I waited in the aim, hearing feeling the pulse in my neck, taking controlled breaths, oxygenating my body. If I felt any emotion, it was only relief that it might soon be over and done with.

There he was. Michael stepped outside, green on blue, carrying a day sack smiling, talking with Robert and Ross either side of him. I got the post on him, centre of the trunk, got it on his sternum, took first pressure.

Shit... A white shirt moved between us.

Keeping the pressure, I followed the group. I got part of his face, still smiling, chatting animatedly. Not good enough, too small a target.

Then someone else, a dark grey suit, blocked my view completely. This wasn't going to work too late, too many bodies blocking.

They were at the wagon. Shit, shit, shit... I released first pressure, ducked back behind the wall, and ran for the gate while applying Safe. No time to think, just to do. Inside my head I was going ape shit Opportunity target! Opportunity target!

Fuck the off-route mine now, I just wanted an explosion. Still screaming silently at myself, I grabbed the tub.

There was a strange, empty feeling in my stomach, the sort I used to have as a kid running scared from something, wishing my legs could go as fast as my head wanted them to.

Gasping for air, I reached the gate and dropped the tub against the wall, the blue rope still attached, the rest trailing behind.

Opportunity target, opportunity target!

The engine note of the Lexus changed as the wagon started down the drive towards me. It got louder as I picked up the bergen and sprinted along the edge of the trees by the road.

It was time to hide. I launched myself into the foliage at a point about thirty metres from the gate.

Fuck, too near to the device ... I got into a fire position in the mud, using the bergen just like the mound, my breathing all over the place.

The electric whine of the motor opening the gates drowned out the noise of the Lexus as it came nearer and then stopped.

I was too low, I had no muzzle clearance.

I jumped up in a semi-squat, grabbing air, legs apart to steady myself, butt of the rifle in my shoulder as I pulled and twisted to get the fucking stupid safety off.

I could see the wraparounds of the two white-shirts in front as we all waited for the gates to open, and knew I was exposed to them. I kept as low as I could, my chest heaving up and down as the Lexus finally started to roll forward.

Just twenty feet to go.

The wagon stopped so suddenly the rear bucked up on its suspension.

Shit! I stopped breathing and fixed both eyes on the tub. I brought the weapon up to refocus into the optic, and took first pressure.

The engine went high-pitched into reverse and I saw the blurry whiteness of the tub and the post clear and sharp in the middle of it then fired.

I dropped the weapon as I hit the floor, screaming to myself as the shock-wave surged over me. It felt like I'd been free falling at 100 mph. and was suddenly stopped by a giant hand in mid-air, but my insides kept going.

Grabbing the rifle, I reloaded and got to my feet, checking the battle sight.

There was no time to watch out for the debris falling from the sky: I had to confirm he was dead.

The wagon had been pushed back six or seven metres on the tarmac. I started towards the dust cloud as shattered masonry and bits of jungle fell back to earth, butt in the shoulder, ears ringing, vision blurred, my whole body shaking. Rubble and twisted ironwork lay where part of the right-hand wall and gates had once stood.

I closed in on the mangled wreck, running in a semi-stoop, and took up a position by the remains of the wall just forward of a smouldering, man-sized crater. Chunks of brick rained down on the wagon. The once immaculate Lexus now looked like a stock car, smashed, beaten, its side windows missing, the windscreen safety glass shattered and buckled.

I took aim with the battle sights through the driver's window. The first round thudded into the bloodstained white-shirt who was slumped but recovering over the steering wheel.

Two!"

Maintaining the weapon in the shoulder and supported by my left hand, I reloaded and took another shot into the second slumped, bloodstained white-shirt on the passenger side.

Three!"

With only four I had to remember my rounds fired; I was crap at it and counting out loud was the only way for me.

Only smaller fragments of leaf and tree floated from the sky now, landing on the vehicle and tarmac all around me as I moved in, weapon up, towards the rear door. The angle changed: I saw two slumped bodies covered in shattered glass:

one the green T-shirt and blue jeans, the other the dark grey suit. I closed in.

The suit was Charlie. I hoped he was alive.

THIRTY

The target was more or less collapsed in the foot well with his dad down on the seat draped over him. Both were badly shaken, but alive. There was some coughing from Charlie and I could see the target moving.

Mustn't hit Charlie ... I took another couple of steps to get me right up against the door and rammed the weapon inside with my face through the window gap. The muzzle was no more than two inches from the target's bloody, glass-covered and confused head.

Bizarrely, the air-conditioner was still blowing, and a Spanish voice jabbered on the radio as the target moaned and groaned, pushing his father off him. His eyes were closed; I could see fragments of glass trapped in his eyebrows.

I felt the second pressure on my finger pad, but it was refusing to squeeze further. Something was holding me back.

Fuck, get on with it!

The muzzle followed his head as it moved about, turning over on to his side. It was now virtually in his ear. I moved it up a little, to the tip.

It wasn't happening, my finger wouldn't move. What the fuck was the matter with me?

COME ON, DO IT! DO IT!

I couldn't, and in that instant I knew why. A stab of fear ripped through my body.

My brain filtered out almost everything, but it let in the shouts; I turned to see partly dressed men starting to pour from the house, carrying weapons.

I withdrew the rifle, reached in the front, and pulled the Nokia off the BG's belt. Then I wrenched open the buckled metal and seized a fistful of suit. I dragged a fucked-up Charlie on to the tarmac, virtually running with him to the other side of what was left of the wall.

"Move! Move!"

I kicked him to his knees and he fell forward on to his hands. Stepping back out of grab range, I aimed at his head.

"Can you hear me?"

The shouts were getting nearer. I kicked him.

"The missile guidance system, make sure-' "What is wrong with you people?" He coughed as blood dribbled from his chin, not lifting his head as he shouted back angrily, without a trace of fear.

"It's been delivered last night! You have the launch control system you have everything! The Sunburn is complete! What more do you want?"

"Delivered? This is about getting it delivered?"

He looked up at me, staring along the barrel that moved up and down as we both fought for breath.

"Last night! You people use my son to threaten me, demanding it by tomorrow night, you get it and still-' As the blood ran down his neck he saw my confusion.

"Don't you people know what each other is doing?"

Tuesday the guy in the pink Hawaiian shirt. He was here -has he got it?"

"Of course!"

"Why should I believe you?"

"I don't care what you believe. The deal is done, yet you still threaten my family... Remember the condition no Panamanian targets. Why is it still here?

You said it would move straight to Colombia not use it here. Do you know who I am? Do you know what I can do to you?"

"Fatherrrrr!" Michael had seen us and his eyes widened.

"Don't kill him please don't kill him. Please!"

Charlie yelled something in Spanish, probably telling him to run, then fixed his glare on me once more. There was not a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"Well, Englishman, what now? You already have what you came here for."

I took a swing with the rifle butt and got him on the side of the neck. He curled into a ball of pain as I turned and ran along the treeline, back towards the bergen. I grabbed it in my spare hand, looked back and saw Michael limping towards his dad as people and vehicles converged.

That was the problem. Michael was real people. He was a kid with a life, not one of the shadow people I was used to, the sort of target I'd never thought twice about killing.

I hurled myself into the jungle, crashing through wait-a-while, not caring about sign. I just wanted to get my arse out of here and into the wall of green.

Barbs tore into my skin and my throat was so parched it hurt to take breath. But none of that mattered: the only thing that did was getting away.

The commotion behind me gradually faded, soaked up by the jungle as I penetrated deeper but I knew it wouldn't be long before they got organized and came in after me.

There was automatic fire. The follow-up was much quicker than I'd expected: they were firing blindly, hoping to zap me as I ran. That didn't bother me, the trees would take the brunt. The only important thing was whether or not they were tracking me.

I pulled out my compass, checked, and headed east for about twenty metres, towards the loop, taking my time now, trying not to leave upturned leaves or broken cobwebs in my wake. Then I turned north, then west, doubling back on myself but off to the side of my original track. After five or six metres, I stopped, looked around for a thick bush, and wormed my way into it.

Squatting on my bergen, butt in the shoulder, safety off, I fought for breath.

If they were tracking, they would pass right to left, seven or eight metres in front as they followed my sign. The rule about being chased in the jungle, learnt the hard way by far better soldiers than me, was that when the enemy are coming fast you've got to sidestep and creep away. Don't keep on running, because they'll just keep on following.

Slowly peeling three rounds from one of the ready rounds I pulled back the bolt.

The bearing surfaces glided smoothly over each other as I caught the round it was about to eject, then fed the four rounds slowly and deliberately back into the mag before pushing the bolt home.

I sat, watched and listened as I got out the blood-smeared mobile. No matter what was going on down here stop delivery, guarantee delivery, whatever I'd failed to do what the Yes Man had sent me here for, and I knew what that meant.

I had to make a call.

There was no signal, but I tried the number anyway, just in case, my finger covering the tiny speaker hole that sent out the touch tone. Nothing.

Baby-G said it was 7.03. I played with the phone, finding vibrate, and put it away again.

Shit, shit, shit. The pins and needles were returning. I had the helpless feeling that Carrie had described, that awful emptiness when you think you've lost someone and are trying desperately to find them. Shit, not here, not now A frenzied exchange in Spanish brought me back to the real world. They were close.

There were more shouts from under the canopy but were they following me? I sat motionless as seconds, and then whole minutes, ticked by.

Nearly seven fifteen. She'll be getting up soon for school... I had fucked up, I had to accept that. But what was more important now, at this very moment, was getting a signal on the mobile, and that meant going back uphill towards the house, where I'd seen it used.

There was the odd resonant yell that sounded like a howler monkey, but I saw no one. Then there was movement to my front, the crashing of foliage as they got closer. But they weren't tracking: it sounded too much of a gang fuck for that. I held my breath, butt in the shoulder, pad on the trigger as they stopped on my trail.

Sweat dripped off my face as three voices gob bed off at warp speed, maybe deciding which direction to take. I could hear their M-16s, that plastic, almost toy-like sound as they moved them in their hands, or dropped a butt on to the toecap of a boot.

A burst of automatic fire went off in the distance and my three seemed to decide to go back the way they'd come. They'd obviously had enough of this jungle lark.

Anyone tracking me, even if they'd lost my sign and had had to cast out to find it, would have gone past my position by now. Even with me trying to cut down on sign, a blind man could have followed the highway I'd made if he'd known what he was feeling for.

I got just short of the edge of the treeline, all the time checking the signal bars on the mobile. Still nothing.

I heard the heavy revs of one of the bulldozers and the squeal of its tracks.

Moving forward cautiously, I saw plumes of black diesel smoke billow from the vertical exhaust as it lumbered towards the gate. Beyond it, the front of the house was a frenzy of people. Bodies with weapons shouted at each other in confusion as wagons moved up and down the road.

I moved back into the wall of green, applied Safe and started checking up at the canopy as I unravelled the string on the weapon to make a sling. I found a suitable tree about six metres in: it would have a good view of the house, looked easy to climb, and the branches were strong enough to support my weight.

I took out the strapping that was going to be my seat, got the bergen on my back, slung the weapon over my shoulder, and started to clamber up as engines revved and people shouted out in the open ground.

When I was about twenty feet up I tried the Nokia again, and this time I got four bars.

Fastening the straps between two strong branches, I hooked the bergen over another next to them, settled into the seat facing the house, then spread one of the mozzie nets over me before closing down the bergen in case I had to buy out.

I was going to be here for a while, until things had quietened down, so the net had to be hung out on to branches so it wasn't clinging to me, and tucked under to cover the straps. I needed to hide my shape, shine, shadow, silhouette and movement; that wouldn't happen if I didn't spread it out a bit to prevent myself looking like a man in a tree with a mozzie net over him. Finally, cradling the weapon across my legs, I calmed myself down as I hit the keypad.

Not giving him time to think or talk, I got to him in a loud whisper.

"It's me Nick. Don't talk, just listen ..."

THIRTY-ONE

"Josh, just listen. Get her to safety, do it now. I've fucked up big-time. Get her away somewhere safe, she needs to be where no one can get at her. I'll call in a few days, got it? Got it?"

There was a pause.

"Josh?"

"Fuck you! Fuck you! When does this stop? You're playing with a kid's life again. Fuck you!"

The line went dead. He'd hung. But I knew he'd take this seriously. The last time I'd fucked up and put kids in danger, they'd been his own.

I felt a flood of relief as I removed the battery before the mobile went back in my pocket. I didn't want to be traced from the signal.

Tasting the bitter Deet as sweat ran into my mouth, I watched the commotion outside the house. I wondered if the police would be up here soon, being given my description, but doubted it. Charlie would want to keep something like this under wraps and, anyway, it wasn't as if the explosion would have disturbed the neighbourhood; big bangs would have been a daily occurrence as they cleared the jungle to make way for his house.

I leant over to the bergen, got out the water and took a few swigs, feeling better about Kelly now. No matter what Josh thought of me, he'd do the right thing for her. It wasn't the answer, just the best short-term solution I had available.

She and I were still in deep shit. I knew I should have called the Yes Man, explained to him what I thought I knew, and waited out. That was what I should have done, so why hadn't I? Because a voice in my head was telling me something different.

Charlie had said Sunburn. The Yes Man had sent me here to deal with a missile system that was a threat to US helicopters in Colombia. A ground-to-air missile system. That wasn't Sunburn Sunburn was surface-to-surface. I remembered reading about the US Navy flapping because their anti-missile de fences couldn't defeat it. Sunburn was their number-one threat.

I tried to recall details. It had been in Time or Newsweek, something like that, last year on the tube to Hampstead ... it was about ten metres long because I'd visualized being able to fit two end to end in a tube carriage.

What else? I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

Think, think ... The Pizza Man ... He had been at the locks on Tuesday. The locks webcam was part of the relay com ms from the house. The Pizza Man's team were monitoring drug movements by PARC. He'd also been at Charlie's house and maybe, if Charlie had told me the truth, he had Sunburn.

I suddenly saw what was happening. George was carrying the fight to the enemy:

they'd been monitoring drug shipments through the canal, and now it looked as though they were getting proactive, maybe using Sunburn as a threat to PARC that if they used the canal to ship drugs they'd get taken out.

That still didn't answer why I'd been sent here to stop Charlie delivering a ground-to-air system ... The noise of rotor blades clattered over the canopy. I recognized at once the heavy bass wap wap wap wap the unique signature of American Hueys, coming in low. The two helicopters shot past, immediately above me. The massive downwash made my tree sway as they flared into the clearing, then, just feet off the ground, crept towards the front of the house. Mud puddles were blown away, and jungle debris was blasted in all directions. The house was now behind a wall of down draught and heat haze blasting out from the Hueys' exhausts. A yellow and white Jet

Ranger followed behind, like a child trying to keep up with its parents.

The scene before me could have come straight from a Vietnam newsreel. Armed men jumped from the skids and doubled towards the house. It could have been the 101st "Air Assault' screaming down for an attack, except these guys were in jeans.

The Jet Ranger swooped down so close to the front of the house it looked as if it was actually going to ring the doorbell, then it backed away and settled on the tarmac near the fountain.

The heat haze from its exhaust blurred my view, but I could see Charlie's family begin to stream towards it from the front door.

I sat and watched through the optic as my former target comforted an older Latino woman, still in her nightgown. On her other side was a bloodstained Charlie, his suit ripped, his arms around her. All three were surrounded by anxious, shouting men with weapons, shepherding them forward. As I followed them with the optic, the post was on Michael's chest for what felt like an age.

I looked at his young, bloody face, which showed only concern for the woman. He belonged to a different world from his father, George, the Pizza Man and me. I hoped he'd stay that way.

The air was filled with the roar of churning blades as they were bustled inside the aircraft. The two Hueys were already making height. They dipped their noses, and headed towards the city.

The Jet Ranger lifted from the tarmac, and headed in the same direction. There was relative quiet for a few seconds, then somebody barked a series of orders at the men on the ground. They started to sort themselves out. Their mission, I guessed, was to look for me. And this time I had the feeling they'd be better organized.

I sat in my perch, wondering what to do next as wagon after wagon left the house packed with men and M-16 assault rifles, and returned empty. Checking Baby-G, I knew I'd have to start moving out of here soon if I was to make maximum use of daylight.

Last light, Friday. That had been my deadline. Why? And why were the Firm involved in all this? They obviously needed Sunburn in place for tomorrow. I had been bullshit ted with the ground-to-air story. I didn't need to know what it was really about because, after the London fuck-up, sending me was their last desperate attempt to get their hands on the complete system.

Last light. Sunset.

Oh, fuck. The Ocaso ... They were going to hit the cruise liner, real people, thousands of them. It wasn't a drug thing at all... why?

Fuck it, why didn't matter. What mattered was that it didn't happen.

But where was I going? What was I going to do with what I thought I knew?

Contact the Panamanians? What would they do? Cancel the ship? So what? That would be just another short-term solution. If they couldn't find Sunburn in time, the Pizza Man could just fire the fucking thing at the next ship that came along. Not good enough. I needed an answer.

Go to the US embassy, any embassy? What would they do -report it? Who to? How long would it be before someone picked up the phone to George? And however important he was, there'd be some even more powerful people behind him. There had to be. Even C and the Yes Man were dancing to their tune.

I had to get back to Carrie and Aaron. They were the only two who could help.

Movement outside the house was dwindling: no more vehicles, just one or two bodies walking around, and to the left and out of sight, the sound of a bulldozer shunting the damaged Lexus off the road.

It was 8.43 time to leave the tree. I unpinned the trouser-leg pocket and pulled out the map. I bent my head down so my nose was just six inches from it and the compass on its short cord could rest on its faded surface. It took me thirty seconds to take a bearing, across green, then the white line of the loop road, more green, to the middle of Clayton and the main drag into the city. As to how I got back to the house from there, I'd just busk it -anything, just as long as I got back.

Having checked that my map was securely pinned in my pocket, I clambered down with the bergen and weapon, leaving the hide to the birds. Once the bergen was on and the string back round the weapon, I headed east towards the loop and Clayton, taking my time, focusing my mind and my vision on the wall of green, butt in the shoulder, safety off, finger straight along the trigger guard, ready to react.

I could have been back in Colombia, looking for DMPs, carefully moving foliage out of the way instead of fighting it, avoiding cobwebs, watching where I stepped to cut noise and sign, stopping, listening, observing before moving into dead ground, checking my bearing, looking in front of me, to my left, to my right, and, just as important, above.

I wanted to travel faster than I was going, desperate to get back to Aaron and Carrie's, but I knew this was the best and safest way to make that happen.

They'd no longer be thrashing about or firing blindly, they'd be waiting, spread out, static, for me to bumble into them. Tactical movement in the jungle is so hard. You can never use the easier high ground, never use tracks, never use water features for navigation. The enemy expects you to use them. You've got to stay in the shit, follow a compass bearing, and move slowly. It's worth it: it means you survive.

Sweat laced with Deet dripped into my eyes, not just due to the humidity inside this pressure cooker but because of the stress of slow, controlled movement, constantly straining my eyes and ears, and all the time I was thinking: What if they appear to my front? What if they come from the left? What if they fire first and I don't know where the fire is coming from? Contacts in the jungle are so close you can smell their breath.

THIRTY-TWO

It had taken me two hours to reach the loop, which was a lot quicker than I'd expected.

I dumped the bergen, and unstuck my T-shirt from my back in an attempt to relieve the chigger bites. Then I fingered my wet, greasy hair off my forehead and started moving slowly forward, butt in the shoulder. As I neared the road it was time to apply Safe and get down on the jungle floor. Using elbows and the toes of my Timberlands, I dragged myself to the edge of the canopy. The weapon lay along the right side of my body; I moved it with me, knowing that with the safety firmly on, there was no chance of a negligent discharge.

Last night's rain filled the dips and pot-holes in the tarmac, and the sky was still dull. A motley collection of black, light and dark grey clouds brooded above me as I looked and listened. If the boys had any sense, they'd have triggers out along the roads, doing a bit of channelling of their own, waiting to see what emerged from the canopy. Even if they did, I had a bearing I had to stick to.

Edging my way forward a little more so that my head was sticking out from the foliage, I couldn't see anything up the road to the right, apart from the road itself disappearing as it gradually bent left. I turned my head the other way.

No more than forty metres away was one of the wagons from the house, a gleaming black Land Cruiser, facing me and parked up on my side of the road. Leaning against the bonnet was a body with an M-16 in his hands, watching both sides of the bend. He was maybe in his twenties, in jeans, yellow T-shirt and trainers, and looking very hot and bored.

My heart pumped. A vehicle was my fast-track out of here -but did the body have mates? Were they spaced up and down the road at intervals, or was he on stag, ready to whistle up the rest of the group if he saw anything as they enjoyed a quiet smoke behind the wagon?

There was only one way to find out. I inched slowly backwards into the treeline, finally getting up on to my hands and knees before crawling to the bergen.

Shouldering it, I removed Safe and slowly closed on the wagon by paralleling the road, butt in the shoulder, eyes and ears on full power. Each time my foot touched the jungle floor and my weight crushed the leaves, the sound seemed a hundred times louder to me than it really was. Each time a bird took flight I froze in mid-stride, like a statue.

Twenty painstaking minutes had passed when I was brought to a halt once more.

From just the other side of the wall of green came the sound of his weapon banging against the side of the Land Cruiser. It seemed to be just a little forward and to my half right, but no more than about eight metres away.

For a minute or two I stood still and listened. There was no talking, no radio traffic, just the sound of him coughing and gob bing on to the tarmac. Then came the noise of metal panels buckling. He was standing on the roof or bonnet.

I wanted to be in a direct line with the wagon, so I moved on a little further.

Then, like a DVD in extreme slo-mo, I lowered myself to my knees and applied Safe, the barely audible metallic click sounding in my head as if I'd banged two hammers together. Finally I laid down the weapon and took off my bergen one strap at a time, continually looking in the direction of the wagon, knowing that if I moved forward just two metres I would be in plain sight of my new best mate and his M-16.

Once the bergen was on the ground I rested the rifle against it with the barrel sticking up in the air to make it easier to find. Fuck the zero, I didn't need it now. Then, very slowly and deliberately,

I extracted my gollock. The blade sounded as if it was running along a grinding stone instead of just gliding past the alloy lip of the canvas sheath.

Down on to my stomach once more and with the gollock in my right hand, I edged carefully forward on my toes and elbows, trying to control my erratic breathing as I wiped the Deet very slowly out of my eyes.

I neared the edge of the treeline at a point about five metres short of the wagon. I could see the nearest front wheel, its chromed alloys stained with mud at the centre of a lot of wet, shiny tyre.

I edged forward a little more, so slowly it would have made a sloth look like Linford Christie. Another couple of metres and the bottom of the door sills and the front wing came into view but in the gap between them and the grass, I saw no legs. Maybe he was sitting inside, maybe, as the buckling sound had suggested, he was standing on the roof. My eyes strained at the tops of their sockets as I tried to look up. I heard the coughing up of phlegm and spitting;

he was definitely outside, definitely up there somewhere.

I counted off sixty seconds before moving again. He was going to hear me soon. I didn't even want to swallow: I was so close I could have reached out and touched the wheel.

I still couldn't see him, but he was above me, sitting on the bonnet, and his heels had started to bang rhythmically against the wing furthest away from me.

He must be facing the road.

I knew what I needed to do, but I had to psyche myself to do it. It's never easy to take on somebody like this. Up there was virgin ground, and when I got on to it, I had to react quickly to whatever I found. What if there was another guy in the wagon, lying asleep? What if he had heard me and was just waiting for me to pop up?

For the next thirty seconds I revved myself up as mozzies hovered around my face. I checked I was holding the gollock correctly with a good firm grip, and that the blade was facing the right way. I took one last deep breath and sprang to my feet.

He was sitting on the opposite wing with his back to me, weapon on the bonnet to his left. He heard me, but it was too late to turn. I was already leaping towards him, my thighs striking the edge of the bonnet, my feet in the air. My right hand swung round and jammed the gollock across his neck; with my left I grabbed the blunt edge of the blade and pulled tight, trying to drag his head on to my chest.

The M-16 scraped over the body work as he moved back with me over the wing, my body weight starting to pull us both to the ground as his legs kicked and his body twisted. His hands came up to grab my wrists, trying to pull the gollock away, and there was a scream. I squeezed his head against my chest and committed to falling backwards off the wagon. The air exploded out of me as my back hit the ground and he landed on top of me, and we both cried out with pain.

His hands were round the gollock and he writhed like a madman, kicking out in all directions, banging against the wheel and wing. I opened my legs and wrapped them round his waist, forcing my feet between his legs, then flexed my hips in the air and thrust out my chest, trying to stretch him as I pushed the gollock against his neck. I worked my head down to his left ear.

"Ssssh!"

I could feel the gollock in the folds of his skin. The blade must have penetrated his neck a little; I felt warm blood on my hands. I shushed him again and he finally seemed to get the message.

Keeping my hips thrust out, I bent him over me in an arc. He stopped moving, apart from his chest, which heaved up and down. I could still feel his hands against mine as he gripped the blade, but he wasn't struggling any more. I kept on shushing into his ear.

He didn't say or do anything as I forced him over to the right, pulling back on the blade, murmuring, "Come on, over you go, over you go," not knowing if he could even understand me. Soon my chest was on his head, pressing his face into the leaf litter, and I was able to look behind me for the M-16. It wasn't far away; I got my foot into the sling and pulled it within reach. The safety catch was on, which was good: it meant the weapon was made ready, that there was a round in the chamber, because you can't apply Safe on these things otherwise. I could hardly use it to threaten him if he knew it wasn't ready to fire.

There was snorting from his nostrils as they filled up with mucus from shock, and the movement of his chest made me feel I was on a trampoline. I still had one of my legs wrapped around him and could feel the weight of his hips on my knee in the mud. The important thing was that apart from his breathing he was motionless exactly as I would have been in this situation because, like him, I'd be wanting to come out of it alive.

I untangled my leg while keeping the pressure on his neck with the gollock, and the moment I was free I used my left hand to grab the M-16. Then, still keeping the blade against his neck, I slowly got up, shushing gently until I was hovering over him and could take away the blade.

He knew exactly what was happening and did the right thing by keeping absolutely still, his face wincing with pain as the blade ran along his neck. It wasn't cut that much, and they weren't deep gashes. Once free, I jumped back and got the M16 on him with just my left hand.

I spoke gently.

"Hello."

His eyes locked on mine, full of fear. I put the gollock to my lips and gave him another shush, nodding for him to get to his feet. He complied very slowly, keeping his hands up even when I began to steer him into the jungle, back in the direction of my kit. There wasn't really enough time to be doing this because more of his crew might arrive at any minute, but I needed to retrieve Carrie's rifle.

We reached the bergen site and I got him to lie face down while I hurriedly shouldered the Mosin Nagant and sheathed the gollock. I pulled back the cocking piece on the M-16 just to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and that both of us hadn't fucked up.