By the time they had gathered their equipment together it was gone two o'clock. It would take a couple of hours to get to Brize Norton and as they walked round to the front of the main building they saw a vehicle pull up and wait. It was a standard white minibus — the sort of thing you might expect a scoutmaster to be in charge of — and the driver was dressed in civilian clothes, although Will knew he was Hereford through and through. Steve Elliott was waiting by the minibus, his face unreadable as they approached. He indicated to Will that he should step aside with him.
'I don't like not knowing what my men are doing, Will,' he said, once they were out of earshot. 'I know we're both following orders and I know I don't need to say it, but be careful, OK?'
Will nodded.
'And good luck. I want to see you all back here very soon.'
'You will, boss,' Will replied, quietly. 'You will.' He turned back to his unit, nodded at them and together they climbed into the back of the minibus.
The case of weapons was already waiting for them on the floor, tucked well out of sight of any casual observer, and as they drove out of the heavily guarded gates to RAF Credenhill, they looked for all the world like a bunch of mates going on a trip together.
Inside the bus, the lads chatted calmly. 'You heard about Stevens?' Drew asked no one in particular.
'Aye,' Kennedy replied. 'Out on his fucking ear. Sounds like he went to the bank one time too many.'
Will's face must have registered his confusion. 'Andy Stevens,' Kennedy explained. 'You know him?'
Will shook his head.
'No, you probably wouldn't. Only been with the Regiment a year or so, silly fucker.'
'What'd he do?'
'He was out in Baghdad. Some of the lads were helping transport fucking great palettes of Yankie dollars, which they were sending out there to help rebuild the ragheads' economy. Course, he couldn't resist helping himself, could he? Would've got away with it, too, if some bird at that bank in Hereford hadn't noticed he was coming in every other day to change several thousand dollars.'
'How much did he take?' Will asked.
'No one knows. Enough to get him a fucking court martial, though. Shame — quite liked the lad myself. Bit of a wanker, but if I had a problem keeping the company of wankers, I wouldn't be here, would I?'
The others smiled and the conversation moved on. Will listened to them as they discussed the latest Hereford gossip and the stories they'd heard on the news — anything apart from the job in hand. But when there was a lull in the conversation, Will knew they would be mentally preparing themselves, going through the salient details of the mission in their heads. Anderson, Drew and Kennedy showed no signs of nerves — just a quiet, determined detachment, a confidence that they would be able to get the job done.
Deep down, Will wished he could share in that confidence. Forty-eight hours ago he had been a nobody, just some waster in the pub filling his time with whatever best numbed his grief on that particular day. Now he felt he had a purpose and he started feeling the hot anticipation that always used to surge through him before a mission. It was tempered, though, by an uneasiness, a self-doubt. Steve Elliott had been brutal in his assessment that Will might not be up to the job, yet he hadn't said anything Will didn't feel deep down. But the confidence of the others was reassuring.
He tried to put those doubts from his mind and focus on the task ahead.
There was a lull in the conversation. Will turned to Anderson. 'You've got a kid, right?' he said.
Anderson looked surprised that Will should have brought it up. 'Yeah,' he said, warily.
'How old?'
'Nearly three.'
'Looking forward to Christmas, I'll bet.'
Anderson smiled the smile of an indulgent parent. 'Yeah,'
he said quietly. 'She is.'
Will nodded and for a moment an image of his own daughter flitted through his head. 'We're going to make sure you're back for her.'
The three other men stared at him in mild astonishment and Will felt a flush of embarrassment rise to his face. What the hell had made him say that? He knew full well that that kind of talk before an operation was strictly out of bounds. These guys didn't even want to entertain the notion of failure and Will knew that Anderson had not even considered the idea that he wouldn't be back home for Christmas.
It wasn't that they were blasé, it was just that they knew that full confidence in their own training and ability was their best friend.
Kennedy broke the uncomfortable silence that followed. 'You said you'd give us the name of the target once we left Hereford,' he reminded Will.
Will sniffed. 'Her name is Latifa Ahmed.'
Surprise registered on Kennedy's face. 'Her name? It's a woman?'
'That's right,' Will said, flatly.
'Easy, tiger,' Drew said to Kennedy with a smile. He looked over at Will. 'Our Nathan's got a bit of a reputation,' he said. 'Pulled pigs in fifteen countries at last count, or was it sixteen?'
'Seventeen, actually,' grinned Kennedy, and Will was relieved that his fuck-up of a moment ago seemed to have been forgotten.
'She'll slow us down,' Anderson noted more soberly. It clearly wasn't a complaint; just an observation.
'Probably,' Will agreed. 'And she's being held captive by Taliban extremists, which means she won't be in the best of health. But from what I know about her, she's pretty tough. And she'll want to get away from that place as much as us.'
'You're under instructions from Five, right?' Drew piped up.
'That's right.'
'So what do they want with her?'
Will couldn't say too much, but he knew that if the unit thought he was keeping too much from them, it might engender bad feeling. 'She has information about a possible terrorist strike against London,' he said evasively, and the three of them seemed to accept that.
'Fucking ragheads,' Kennedy murmured, and the minibus continued to speed down the motorway.
Night started to fall and by the time they reached Brize Norton it was pitch black. Word of their arrival had clearly preceded them and the minibus was allowed to drive straight through and wait at the side of the runway. They arrived just in time to see the lights of the Galaxy emerge through the clouds in the distance. It was an impressive sight as it roared in to land, the engines of this massive transport plane filling the air all around, making it impossible for them to shout at each other, let alone speak. Will had been in enough of these aircraft — and planes like it — in the past, but he was always slightly taken aback by the sheer size of them when seen close up. The Galaxy had a wingspan of almost seventy metres and housed a cargo department nearly forty metres long. As soon as it came to a halt, the engines whirred to a silence and a fleet of refuelling vehicles drove up to it to start replenishing its tanks, while Drew and Kennedy flung open the back doors of the minibus and carried the weapons case out on to the tarmac.
A uniformed man descended from the cockpit of the plane. He walked briskly up to the unit and gave them all a cursory nod. 'You're our passengers, I take it?' he shouted in an American accent.