Exit wound

‘“Swing, swing to-ge-ther… With your bo-dies be-tween your knees…”’

For the next ten minutes we had to put up with his favourite chorus in between snatches of commentary.

‘Here we go, up the kerb.’

We’d reached our final stop and check. We bumped up onto the rough ground surrounding the target. The sky went dark and we came to a halt. The engine ticked over as Dex let the traffic zoom past.

‘No vehicles that came past last time.’ He gave it another thirty seconds. ‘That’s it, we’re clear. No one following and I have no movement or light on target.’ He killed the headlights.

28

Red Ken gave me room to stretch. ‘OK, that’s it. Let’s switch on.’

Dex rolled the wagon slowly over the wasteground towards the target. A couple of hundred metres away from it, he started easing up the handbrake instead of using the foot pedal. We didn’t want red taillights flashing on derelict ground.

We came to a halt and Red Ken and I jumped out. The lights of the city glowed all round our island of darkness. The ski-slope tower blinked about a K away so the Dexes of this world didn’t fly into it. About five hundred metres behind us, hundreds of vehicles flowed along the well-lit main.

We moved forward on foot.

The target wall was maybe a hundred and fifty ahead.

The gates facing the entrance to the building were immediately in front of us. From here on in, that side of the rectangle was White. The left-hand side was Green, the right was Red and the rear section Black. Colour coding prevented confusion: your rear could be someone else’s front.

We eased off to the left. Sweat trickled down my neck as we rounded the first corner of White and Green. We did a complete 360 of the compound wall, gradually spiralling in until we came right up against it where Red met White.

There was a constant hum of traffic. Helicopters buzzed from one high-rise to another in the background. We listened for movement inside the compound. We stayed like that for a couple of minutes, just listening and tuning in. The ambient light wasn’t strong enough to cast a shadow onto the wall, but now my night vision was kicking in I could see the dust and rubble below our feet. My fingers had pruned inside the surgical gloves, floating in pools of sweat.

Red Ken gave me a tap on the shoulder to check if I’d heard anything.

I shook my head.

We followed the wall on White until we reached the entrance.

29

The gate had once had a coat of paint, but I couldn’t tell what colour it had been. The desert wind had sandblasted some patches bare. Wind from the sea had made it rust and peel.

The three big padlocks Red Ken had spotted on their last recce were still in place: massive square things, just the body exposed so you couldn’t attack the shanks with a cutter.

Red Ken went down on his knees, scanning the ground for tread marks. The wind would have obliterated anything more than a few days old, so anything visible could be taken as recent. It was one more combat indicator, something that showed the enemy was close – because tonight there were no friendly forces.

A foot-high ridge of sand had built up along the bottom of the gate. If somebody had made entry recently it would have been disturbed. We were going to leave it just as it was.

Red Ken leant his back against the wall, knees bent. He cupped his hands on his lap. I put my right foot into his gloves, steadied myself with my hands on his shoulders, then reached up and grabbed the top of the wall. He stood and guided my feet to his shoulders.

The yard was pitch black. No vehicle lights, no lights from the windows either side of the shutters.

I waited twenty seconds before looking again, so my unconscious had time for everything around it to sink in. I came back down. ‘OK. We’re on.’

Red Ken moved a little further along the wall towards White and Red to be the marker for the Tata and I moved towards Dex to guide him in. He’d be driving without lights and using only the handbrake and gears.

I pulled my torch up onto my forehead. Its three LEDs shone white or red, as a stable beam or flashes for emergencies. Stable and red would do us fine, but not just yet. I walked until the Tata was almost on top of me and the cab blocked out the city lights behind it. I gripped the sill of the open window to murmur in Dex’s ear, ‘You can see the wall?’

‘Yep.’

‘OK, go half right then turn in. Red’s your marker.’

Dex kept it at gentle revs as he rolled forward. There was no rush about this bit. The noise wasn’t important; not hitting the brakes was. He pulled up the handbrake when he got to his mark and left the engine running.

I scrambled on top of the cab and jumped onto the wall. I dropped into a stretch of finely powdered sand that had had no way of escaping the compound. One hand on my pistol to keep it in my waistband, I ran to Black. All clear.