Kashmir Rescue. Doug Armstrong

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СКАЧАТЬ us a break. It’s either this or I’ll have gut-ache for the rest of the day.’

      ‘Make it gut-ache then, but one more of those and you’re out in the rain.’

      Muttering under his breath Colin sat upright. He looked at his watch. ‘Couldn’t we call in? Perhaps the ex is over and they’ve forgotten to tell us.’

      Paul laughed. ‘Don’t be a bigger dick than you already are. Can you imagine Don sodding Headley screwing up like that?’

      The radio crackled and a terse message was sent to one of the other teams. Spread in a vast ring around Heathrow, they were taking part in an anti-terrorist exercise that had already been going on for nearly three days. The floor of the car was littered with all the detritus of a stake-out: cigarette packets, hamburger cartons, newspaper reeking of old fish and chips, drink cans, crisp packets, sweet wrappers and heavily thumbed copies of several tabloids, the pages no longer in any sort of order and not one crossword more than a third completed.

      Captain Don Headley of the SAS had kept them on the go ever since his initial briefing, and all the teams were longing for the exercise to end. Those who passed were due to proceed to the next stage of training, but Paul and Colin were having serious doubts about their original decision to transfer to the new anti-terrorist squad that was being set up.

      ‘You know what I can’t stick?’ Colin said after a while.

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘The way Don manages to go without sleep for days on bloody end and still keep his cool.’

      He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Me, I feel shagged after one night out.’

      Paul grinned. ‘He’s a right smooth bugger, isn’t he? Still, with a little luck he’ll sod off back to Hereford soon and leave us in peace.’

      The rain lashed against the car window and drummed on the roof. Colin shivered and slid deeper into his leather jacket. The zip was open to the waist and his stomach bulged over his belt. Paul looked at him with distaste.

      ‘In a way it’s kind of cosy in here, isn’t it?’ Colin said, hunting around on the back seat for a paper to read.

      ‘Speak for yourself.’ Paul eyed the debris. ‘If this is your idea of cosy I can imagine what your house looks like. It explains why your wife left you.’

      ‘Nah, silly cow was worse than I was. You should have seen the kitchen. Looked like a shagging bomb had hit it.’

      Paul could well imagine. He had seen the food stains on the walls and ceilings of Colin’s office. The man was a walking disaster area.

      He rubbed a hole in the breath misting the windscreen. Outside it was starting to lighten. Rain came down vertically, bouncing on the tarmac and rushing in the gutters. He sighed, misting the peep-hole, then looked at his watch for the umpteenth time.

      ‘When do you reckon we’ll be ordered to move?’ Colin asked.

      Paul shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

      They had been carrying out a series of surveillance tasks in their assigned area, but after their last one they had been directed to their present location to await retasking. It looked a prosperous residential street. The houses were mostly large, with trim hedges, large front gardens and no doubt even larger gardens to the rear.

      At the end of the street he saw the large, white shape of a Transit turn towards them. It cruised slowly closer, stopping some thirty yards away. With the water coursing down the windscreen it was impossible to see it distinctly, but he wasn’t bothered. It was probably just a plumber or decorator arriving early for a job in one of the houses.

      However, the next moment he made out the vague outline of figures bundling from the back of the van and running towards one of the larger houses.

      ‘What do you make of that?’

      Colin grunted, not lifting his eyes from the nude in the paper. Her lips were peeled back in a provocative smile, eyes half-closed, breasts thrust out as if someone had just shoved her hard in the small of the back and she was about to topple downstairs.

      ‘Colin, I’m fucking talking to you. Look.’

      Reluctantly Colin made his own peep-hole with his sleeve and peered through it at the house. He was just in time to see one of the men kick his way through the side gate.

      ‘Fucking hell!’ He dropped the paper. ‘It must be another part of the bloody exercise. That bastard! He sent us here for a break and then hits us with an incident. What the fuck do we do?’

      Paul thought for a moment. ‘Hang on,’ he said, playing for time while he ordered his thoughts. ‘They’re probably supposed to be terrorists. It’ll be a safe house or something.’

      ‘Don’t be daft. They wouldn’t go bundling in like that, kicking in doors if it was a safe house, would they?’

      Paul cursed himself silently. He liked to think of himself as the brighter of the two, but for once Colin was right.

      ‘Then they’re probably seizing the house to use as a base for the duration of an attack on the airport.’

      ‘Yeah!’ Colin chirped, becoming enthusiastic. All of a sudden their fatigue was forgotten and they sat up and kicked aside the debris littering the floor of the car as they tried to work out how they were expected to react.

      ‘Perhaps they’re planning to fire a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile from the back garden, or something?’ Colin said, his tongue hardly able to keep pace with his ideas.

      Paul thought about it and rubbed his chin. ‘Could be. We’re right under the main flight path all right. Yeah, that’s probably it.’

      ‘So what do we do then?’ Colin blinked at him, lost for a solution.

      ‘There’s too many of them for us to do anything. I reckon we report in and wait for backup.’

      ‘Good thinking. Will you do it or shall I?’

      Paul reached for the radio. ‘It’s my turn. You bogged up the last one.’

      He pressed the transmitter switch and spoke slowly and clearly, reporting the incident and requesting support. The message was acknowledged and when he had replaced the handset he sat back with a self-satisfied smile.

      It was a couple of minutes before the radio buzzed into life again and the voice of Don Headley rasped into the stagnant air of the car.

      ‘Echo Two, what’s all this about a van? Over.’

      Paul and Colin swapped grins. ‘He’s playing dumb,’ Colin whispered, as if Don himself were actually in the car.

      Paul repeated his report. There was another pause before Don came back and said, ‘It’s nothing to do with the ex.’

      ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Paul crooned easily. ‘Look, just log it down that we did the right thing and asked for backup. I know a bunch of terrorists when I see one.’

      Don sounded amused. ‘If that’s the СКАЧАТЬ