Zero Option

By now I'd loaded a full magazine into my pistol. I left the Haskins on the edge of the wood and sprinted forward to the tangle of bodies in the middle of the field. Both were lying face down. Expecting the worst, I pulled Tony over first. He gave a groan. He was very much alive.

It was Farrell who'd got a double-tap through the temple. As I rolled him on to his back I saw that the whole left-hand side of his skull had been opened up.

The mess of blood and brains took me straight back to the corridor in Libya.

Farrell — dead! I could hardly take it in.

Tony was pale and in severe pain. It was he who'd gone down first, with a bullet through the left upper arm. Once both of them were on the deck, Farrell, struggling to break free of his shackle, had yanked the wounded limb all over the place. There was a lot of blood sprayed about the grass. My first action was to get a tourniquet on to Tony's arm above the wound.

Then I called over the radio for urgent casevac.

'Green One. We have two more dead X-rays on the same field, with me. No live X-rays seen. One of our guys is wounded. Get that Puma here soonest. We're only about four hundred metres east of where the QR.F landed.'

'Let's have these fucking cuffs off you,' I said to Tony. 'Where's the key?'

Without speaking he patted the breast pocket of his smock with his right hand. I felt inside, brought the key out, unlocked the cuffs and gently took them off his wrist. I knew I shouldn't move Farrell's body before the scene of crimes officer arrived to make his assessment, but I couldn't help straightening out the cuffed arm.

'Better,' Tony muttered, with an attempt at a smile.

'What happened? Did the guy try to top you and hit Farrell by mistake?'

'No way. He went straight for Farrell like a lunatic.

Put the muzzle of the pistol right on him.'

'What a bunch ofarseholes!' I said. 'Only death can stop them feuding. OK, Tony. Hang on. That chopper will be here any second. Stay with him, Whinger.'

I stood up unsteadily and moved a couple of steps to look at the other dead terrorist. Immediately I recognised the short, grizzled grey hair. 'Christ! It's that bugger from the railway yard. Marty Malone. Old Foxy'l] be chuffed to bollocks. This was the one he wanted most.'

The man was wearing a DPM smock. The huge round had gone straight through his right arm and on through his torso, and his pistol had fallen to the ground. Instinctively I bent to pick it up, but then thought, No, the SOCO will want it left where it fell.

Looking at the far side of the body I saw that the exit wound was as big as a saucer. The left back ribs gaped open, and blood, scraps of lung and pieces of bone had been sprayed ten metres on to the grass beyond.

In my earpiece Yorky was saying, 'Zero Charlie for Green One. Geordie, the med team's on its way to you.

Who's hurt?'

'It's Tony. Bullet through the upper arm. I've contained the bleeding. He could be worse.'

'OK. The guys will be with you in seconds. What's happened to Farrell? Is he still with you?'

'Affirmative. But he's dead.'

I looked down at Tony and said, 'Hear that? The chopper's on its way.'

His eyes were shut, but he nodded.

I knelt beside him, feeling stunned now that the situation was over. When I turned my head sideways I realised that the sun was shining on my cheek. The warmth seemed to bring me back to reality.

'Yorky,' I called. 'Is the Prime Minister OK?'

'The Prime Minister's in roaring form. He's ordered champagne for breakfast, and he's invited you to join him.'

'Don't be stupid.'

'He has. I mean it.'

'Christ, I can't. I've got to see Tim.'

'I know. We've said as much, and he understands.

I'm sure he'll ask you again.'

'He put on a bloody good act, anyway.'

'Come on, lad!' Yorky sounded delighted. 'You didn't think that was him, did you?'

'Who was it, then?', 'Scrubber Jenkins, wearing a poncy wig and two flak jackets, one on top of the other. He was shitting himself too. '

'Why?'

'You might have hit him by mistake.'

'It wasn't me on the rifle, Yorky. It was Farrell.'

'Farrell! Jesus! How the heck did that come about?'

'I told him he had to do the shoot or I'd top him.'

'God almighty! Yer daft bat! He might have killed the PM.'

'Not a chance. I twisted the sight off twenty clicks to the right during the night.'

'Jesus, Geordie… I didn't hear that. Never mention it again or you'll be up to your neck in shit.' And with that Yorky went off the air.

The seconds ticked slowly past. My mind was full of puzzles, and after another minute I called in again.

'It was another PIRA guy who topped Farrell,' I said.

'What the hell were they up to?'

'Drug money, as we thought,' Yorky replied. 'I heard Fraser talking about a bank account the Firm discovered in the Cayman Islands. Farrell had eight million dollars in it.'

'Eight million!'

'Yeah. He'd been creaming off coke deals for years.

If he'd escaped today he'd have done a runner.'

'Where to?'

'Three guesses.'

'Colombia?'

'You got it. He was planning to cut out and make a fresh start there.'

'So the PIRA never really wanted him back?'

'Only to top him.'

'In that case, I've been a pawn to their game all the way through.'

'More or less.'

'Fucking hell! The devious, twisting bastards.'

'Never mind, Geordie. If you're talking chess, it's checkmate to you. You've cleared the bloody board.

King, quen, bishops — the lot.'

SIXTEEN

After a hit like that, all the lads are supposed to head straight back to camp. There, they sit down and calm down, and with a solicitor each one goes through every event that's occurred, every move made, every shot fired. The point of this routine is to prevent anybody talking to the police while they're still fired up with adrenalin and might say something out of place. As soon as the police get a chance they quiz you like there's been a murder, and you need to be careful.

So usually the first evening is spent having a monster piss-up, and everyone gets mongolised; and then, next morning, there is a proper debrief.

But in my case all that went out of the window.

Because of the special circumstances an exception was made, and I was given permission to see my family straight away.

'Take the chopper,' Yorky told me. 'Go with the casualty. They're taking him straight to HendonHospital, and that's where the hostages are anyway.'

'What's happened to them?' I was so hyped up that I immediately became suspicious. 'Did they get injured in the recovery?'

'No, no. tkelax. It's just that Tracy's exhausted. She's had more than enough for the time being.'

'OK, Yorky. Thanks. Have you called Doughnut and Stew back in?'

'Done that. They're on their way.'

'Great. I'll leave Whinger here on the ground to deal with the SOCO.'

'Fair enough. One more thing. You can't walk into the hospital in your DPMs — too high profile. There's a pair of plain police overalls on board the chopper. Slip them over the top during the flight.'

'Will do.'

I was still kneeling in the middle of the field, trying to chill out, unable yet to believe the nightmare was over.

'The Haskins is still on the edge of the wood,