Through my binos I watched the pair move up towards the target bank. In the trees around me the wood pigeons were cooing — a soft, heavy sound that suited the dull morning. Not a breath of breeze stirred the forest, so wind was not a factor. Poor light tends to make you shoot high, I remembered; on the other hand, moisture in the air tends to make the bullet drop.
So today, I guessed, one circumstance should cancel the other out, and I decided to fire right at the centre of the aiming mark.
Now the men were on the bank. I saw Tony looking round for something to steady the box. He must have found a flint or a clod of earth, because in a moment he had the target standing uptight.
His voice in my earpiece asked, 'See that OK, Geordie?'
'Fine, thanks.'
'OK. There's a kind of a cave cut into the side of the hill about thirty yards back. We'll get a great view from there. I'll tell you when we're in.'
'That's good. I'm ready when you are.'
The whole point of long-range shooting is to be relaxed. The worst thing, for a sniper, is to have to react suddenly to a command like 'Standby, standby… GO!'
Far better if he can take his own time and think himself into the right frame of mind. Now, with nothing to pressure me, I concentrated on lying tight, elbows and wrists tucked in, and settling my breathing down into a steady rhythm. My technique has always been to take the shot so gently that, when it goes off, it comes almost as a surprise.
When Tony called that he was in place, I acknowledged briefly. Then I loaded one massive round into the breech, breathed down again, took up the first pressure on the trigger, and at the end of an outbreath squeezed the shot off.
BOOM!
The noise was colossal, and the report thundered away into the wooded valley; but the recoil was less than I'd expected. Although the heavy weapon pumped back into my shoulder all right, the twin shock-absorber arms had taken the meat out of the jolt.
All at once the sky above the range was full of pigeons — black shapes going like the clappers in every direction. My ears were still tinging from the explosion, but I could tell that the chorus of cooing had come to an abrupt end.
'Great shot!' Tony was reporting. 'It's dead central, twelve o'clock, two inches above the top of the white.'
'OK,' I said, 'I'll try another. Same point of aim.'
I loaded a second round and went through the same sequenc tuck in, breathe down into a rhythm, try not to blink or flinch… take up first trigger pressure… breathe out…
BOOM!
'Same again,' came Tony's voice. 'Dead centre, two inches above your first shot. Perfect grouping.'
'I'm aiming at the centre of the white. So the MPI's six inches high. Is that right?'
'Exactly.'
'OK, then. I'm going to put the sight down three clicks and fire again. Standby.'
It took me a couple of minute to make the adjustment with the little turret on top of the scope: Then I told Tony I was ready, settled again and touched off a third round.
'Dead on,' he called. 'Now you're in the white, an inch below the top edge. You're not going to do better than that.'
I was on the point of saying we'd call it a day when
Tony came back on the air with, 'Watch it, Geordie.
Some goddamn vehicle's pulled up by that barrier. It's a Land lover. Two guys.'
Instinctively I collapsed the legs of the rifle to lower its profile, and wriggled backwards down the slope of the firing point. Then I realised that two empty cartridge cases were lying there in the grass. Leaving the weapon, I wormed forward again to grab them just in time to see two figures appear at the entrance we'd come to the previous day. They popped into view as if they'd been running, and looked wildly up and down the range. Then, spotting the target, they ran towards that.
'Tony,' I said, 'I'm going to fire a diversionary shot.
Then I'm heading for the vehicle. Get out of there when you see a chance. Make your own way up and R.V at the tree as soon as you can.'
'Poger,' he called.
I got my binos and the empty cases into the pockets of my smock, loaded a fourth round, moved into the bushes at the side of the grass, took a good grip of the rifle and fired it into the ground from a standing position. This time the recoil nearly blew me over backwards, but I kept on my feet, pushed through the cover to regain the path and started up the earth track.
For the first hundred yards or so I ran. Then lack of breath forced me down to a fast walk. Over the past few days [hadn't been able to do any training, and now the effects were coming through. What with the gradient and the weight of the rifle, I was soon gasping like a pair of bellows. All the same, I kept going fast to the crest of the hill, and when I reached the edge of the wood I paused to get my breath back.
As soon as I'd recovered I tried to call Tony, but got no answer. From the angle of the hill, I knew he must be out of my line-of-sight, and probably wouldn't come back on the net until he too had climbed out of the valley.
The Rekord was where we'd left it, with nobody in sight. In a couple of seconds I had the rifle rolled back into its protective wrapping and laid under an old blanket in the boot. I also pulled off my DPM smock and threw that in. Already I was thinking, Shit! I can't stay here now. Those guys in the Land Rover might power up to the ridge at any moment.
Rather than risk a confrontation, I started the engine and drove away northwards, back towards base. As long as nobody associated the car with the shots, it wouldn't attract attention. My plan was to turn round after a couple of minutes, make a reverse run past the big tree, and keep talking until Tony came back on the air.
But I'd only been going about thirty seconds when a police car appeared, travelling fast in the opposite direction,Even though the two guys in it hardly looked at me as they hurtled past, I didn't like the speed at which they were moving. It looked as though they were responding to a callout.
I drove on slowly, trying to read the local map as I went. Finding I couldn't see it properly, I pulled into a lay-by and took a steady look. That reassured me.
A car following the main road, as the police were, would have to go six or seven miles on a roundabout route before it could reach the rifle range. That would give Tony and Farrell at least ten minutes to get clear.
'Chill out,' I told myself. 'They'll makd it, no bother.'
I got out of the car and raised the bonnet as if I had engine problems. An old banger of a white pickup truck came from the south and went by without slowing. As the minutes passed I began to sweat. Calls on the radio produced no answer. What the hell could the other two be doing? The worst scenario was that they'd got captured. The idea was horrendous. IfFarrell fell into the hands of the police at this stage, our entire plan would be scuppered. I tried to put that possibility out of my head.
More likely, I told myself, they were stuck in the thicket above the range. During our recce the night before I'd noticed that there were few big trees on that side of the hill. It looked as though a fire or a storm had taken out the main crop, and all that was left was hawthorn, brambles and other scrub which had grown up in the vacuum. One man, crawling on hands and knees, could probably push his way along tunnels made by deer; but for two, cuffed to each other, progress would be a nightmare. I thought of the wait-a-while thorns which had torn us to pieces in the Colombian jungle, and of Farrell collapsing at the edge of the forest.
Ten minutes after seeing the police car, I turned round and made a run past the big tree, calling all the way on the radio. Nothing. Driving on, I found the road twisted downhill through another big wood, then emerged into open farmland as it dropped into a valley.
I followed it right down to a T-junction at the bottom, and there turned to come back.
Another drive-past, more calls. Still nothing.