Josh recognised the coarse croak. O'Brien.
Josh swivelled to the left. He heard another shot. The guard was shooting blind.
Josh pushed forwards, picking up speed. He was holding back the pain as best he could. A
Death or freedom, pal, he yelled inwardly as he willed himself forward. Either is better than going back to that hell.
'Here, over here,' shouted O'Brien, somewhere off to Josh's left.
Another explosion. Someone was laying down a heavy barrage of stun grenades and smoke bombs. Rescue tactics, Josh realised. Put down enough fire and confusion to get
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your man out without killing him in the process. These guys know what they are doing.
The air was thick with sulphurous smoke. Josh swerved further to the left, avoiding the explosions letting himself be guided by the lethal heat behind him and the noise ahead.
'Jump, man, jump,' shouted O'Brien. 'Over the ridge.'
Josh glanced up. The ridge to the right of the compound that surrounded the bungalow was just ten yards away. The ground rose up steadily until it reached its full height. He would just have to take a run and jump at it. There was no other way.
Ten yards, then five. Despite the waves of pain crashing through him, Josh did his best to pick up all the speed he could. Then he jumped, pushing back with his legs to gain as much height as he could. For a brief instant he was flying through the air. Then he landed hard on the ground. It took another second to find his balance again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien was kneeling in a ditch in the classic firing position, an XM8 assault rifle -- a weapon issued only to American troops and still in extremely restricted circulation even among criminals -- tucked against his shoulder. With a distinctive brown plastic casing and a black metal barrel, the weapon was capable of laying down a ferocious 750 rounds of deadly fire a minute.
A hand reached up, dragging Josh down behind the bank of earth that O'Brien was using for cover. 'You okay, man?' shouted O'Brien, starting to stand up.
A shot rang out. A splatter of blood hit Josh on the chest, smearing his bruised skin. For a second he thought that he'd been hit. He was waiting for the pain to kick in. Then he saw O'Brien drop to his knees. Blood was pouring from a head wound and there was a pitiful whimpering sound coming from his lips. Dying, realised Josh. Only seconds left. No point in even putting him out of his misery.
Josh's eyes swivelled desperately around. Where the hell
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did that shot come from? he wondered. He was positioned behind a ridge of earth overlooking the bungalow. The van the guard had been trying to put him in was already engulfed in flames, filling the area with thick, ugly clouds of black smoke, and the guard was lying bleeding on the ground. There was no sign of the woman.
From the noise of the gunfire, Josh reckoned that there were three, maybe four men attacking the house. About as many defending it.
Josh reached down and grabbed the XM8.The barrel of the weapon was wet and slippery with O'Brien's blood. Another shot whistled over the ridge. It glanced against the casing of the gun, knocking it from his grip. Josh stumbled backwards, his balance thrown by the force of the impact. He noticed that the noise of the gun battle and the grenades had stopped. For a moment there was silence. Then . . .
'Hold it right there, Josh.'
Josh recognised the voice immediately: it was cold and precise. Azim.
You can take me if you want to, Josh told himself, but not alive.
The XM8 was lying in the dirt. Josh glanced up. He could see Azim standing ten yards away, walking slowly towards him. The terrorist was holding a Swiss-made SigSauer P220 handgun, the American version with a stainless-steel casing, a weapon noted for its reliability and accuracy. It was pointed straight at Josh's head. And Azim didn't look like a man who wou^d miss a shot like that. Not at ten yards.
I'm not going back, Josh told himself. I'll take a soldier's death if it's offered to me.
He reached down quickly for the XM8, planning to grab it in one movement and then turn it on Azim. The chances of survival were poor, but Josh no longer cared. His heart was thumping furiously as he began the move, but his mind
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W"
was suddenly calm. You make a decision, he told himself. And once it's made, that's it.
Another shot. The XM8 jumped off the ground and into the air, striking Josh's hand. By the time it landed again, the trigger mechanism had been bent out of shape by the impact of the Sig's bullet.'Hold it,Josh,'Azim shouted again. 'Stay still, and put your hands in the air.'
Josh pulled himself upright. The XM8 was useless now, he realised bitterly. He looked up at Azim. There was a smile on the man's lips. 'Morant is dead. O'Brien is dead. There is no one to help you,' he said coldly. 'Now, do as I told you and put your hands in the air.'
Josh remained perfectly still. Whether he was the only man left standing it was impossible to say. He couldn't hear or see anyone. Right now it was just him against Azim. One against one.
You're not taking me, Josh repeated to himself, the phrase hammering inside his head. You're not taking me alive.
Azim was walking slowly towards him, taking tiny cautious steps. The Sig was aimed straight at Josh's head. My only hope is to rush him,Josh thought.Throw my body against him, and hope that his reaction times are too slow for him to shoot me first. My chances of survival? Above zero -- but only just.
'Give me the bullet now,' snarled Josh. 'Just bloody give it to me now.'
Azim wiped a bead of sweat away from his brow with the back of his left hand, while using the right to keep the Sig aimed straight at Josh. 'A nice, clean soldier's death here on a battlefield of your own choosing? We've already had this discussion, Josh. It's not going to happen.' There was a mocking, lilting tone to his voice as he spoke: the sound of a man charmed by his own rhetoric.
'Just give me the fucking bullet,' shouted Josh.
'Your friends have tried to rescue you and they've failed.
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You're mine now, and you'll break. I know it, you know it.'
The throbbing inside Josh's head was getting worse. L, B, J, he repeated to himself. That was the code from Luke. / know where he is.
'Give me the bullet,' he shouted.
'Start moving sideways, very slowly, Josh,' Azim ordered. 'Do exactly as I say'
'Hold your ground, Josh.'
Josh spun around. Marshall was standing ten yards behind him, holding an American-made Ml Garand sniper rifle. Its long narrow barrel was pointed straight at Azim. Josh judged that Marshall must have crept round the back of the ridge. Josh looked up at him. In the older man's eyes he could see the calm, implacable expression of an old soldier. A man who would be happy to kill you if he needed to.
'Hold your ground,' Marshall repeated, his voice firm and clear.
Josh stood steady, every muscle in his body tense but rock solid? He could see Azim's finger twitching on the trigger of his Sig. The gun was still trained on Josh, but his stare was fixed on Marshall.
'Back away' Azim hissed. 'Or I'll kill him.'
'You need him alive,' snapped Marshall. 'Wounded, crippled, mutilated, whatever. But his brain needs to be alive. You need what's inside it.'
'I need nothing from you,' hissed Azim. 'Back away now, old man. He means nothing to you. Don't throw away your own life.'
Marshall kept the rifle trained on the terrorist. One bullet, thought Josh. He knew that the older man was, at best, only an average shot. If that aim isn't true, we're all corpses. Or worse.
The Garand fired. Azim rocked backwards.The bullet had hit him in the shoulder.
'Run, Josh, run,' shouted a voice.
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A woman. Kate.
She was standing next to the Mustang, twenty yards away. A single thought ran through Josh's mind. Escape.
Azim was stymied by Marshall's gun. Josh started running, surprised at his own speed and agility. His feet pounded against the ground.
Behind him, Josh could hear a shot, then another. He raced towards the car. 'Drive, drive, drive,' he shouted, his lungs burning as he yelled the world.
As he reached Kate he could see her expression changing. A look of horror flashed into her eyes. Her shoulders sagged, and her face creased up. Josh looked behind him. Marshall had fallen to the ground.
The bullet hole in the centre of his forehead was clearly visible.
Dead.
'Into the car,' shouted Josh.
Kate remained motionless, frozen like a statue.
'Into the car,' shouted Josh again, louder this time.
Using the back- of his hand, he slapped her across the cheek. She stays like this, he told himself, we all die. 'You can't help him now,' he shouted. 'Drive the bloody car.'
She opened the door of the Mustang. Josh threw himself into the passenger seat, instinctively diving for cover. At his side, Kate had turned on the ignition. The engine roared to life, revving furiously as she jammed her foot on the accelerator and turned the car hard along the dusty track.
'Drive like hell,' he shouted.
The car spun away on a surge of power. Josh looked briefly behind him. Azim was struggling to his feet. With his left hand, he was clutching his shoulder, trying to staunch the flow of blood that was weeping from the bullet would. With his right hand, he was holding the Sig-Sauer P220. And pointing it straight at the Mustang.
A,
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TWENTY
Monday, June 15th. Afternoon.
It was the smell that brought Josh back to consciousness. He lay with his eyes closed, inhaling the aroma of fresh coffee that was wafting across to where he lay. I don't want to open my eyes, he told himself. I just want to lie here. Smelling freedom.
'You need to drink something,' said Kate. 'It will make you feel better.'
Josh opened his eyes. Kate was kneeling beside him, her red Eair tied back behind her head. She looked tired and drawn, her face smudged with tears, but after the trauma of the last few days it was a relief for Josh just to see a friendly face.
He looked up, noticing the shimmering brightness of the sky above him. As he glanced around, he could see the high boulders and deep crevices of the mountain range.
'Where are we?'
'In the mountains,' answered Kate. 'We're safe -- we're in another of the survivalist camps.'
Josh took the coffee that she'd made him. They were sitting behind a rock formation on a patch of ground with a small cave at one side. Kate had dressed him in some blue chinos and a black sweatshirt: anonymous, easy-wearing gear, just right for a man on the run.
Looking down, Josh could see the plain stretching out below them. There was one road, maybe three or four miles
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distant, and a dirt track, along which Kate had driven the Mustang. The car was parked about twenty yards away: there were some scratches and dents, but it still looked to be intact.
Safe, thought Josh, savouring the word. Safe.
He took a first sip of coffee. There were bandages around his chest, and the wounds on his neck and legs had been freshly treated. His body was clean, and his beard had been trimmed. He could feel swellings in his chest where he had been bitten by the snakes, and there was a numbness in his shoulder where his flesh had been cut open by Azim. The extent of the damage would take a few days to become clear. He couldn't quite be sure how long he had been sleeping. At least twenty hours.
'I'm sorry about Marshall,' he said.
Kate's expression remained stoical. 'So am I,' she replied.
Josh fell silent. It was a terrible thing to lose a father. Once the fog of amnesia had started to clear, the memories had come flooding back to him. Now he had a clear recollection of comrades who had fallen during his time in the Regiment.* He knew that he had broken the news to wives who had lost husbands, and to parents who had lost sons. And he knew that there were no words of consolation, no explanations, and no justifications that would ever make even the tiniest dent in the grief they faced.
There was nothing you could say to dim the intensity of the pain. Nothing.
'You okay?'
Kate looked away. 'It was his choice,' she said softly. 'He knew the risks he was running.'
'You shouldn't have done it,' said Josh. 'I'm not worth it. You should have left me in the ditch. This isn't your fight.'
'When I start something I finish it -- I told you that.'
Josh shook his head. 'No,' he said softly. 'Trust me, sometimes you have to know which battles to fight, and which to skip.'
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'Well, this one I fight.'
'Why?' snapped Josh. 'I'm just some guy you found in a ditch. I know your husband died, but you have to stop torturing yourself about that. You have to move on.'
'Move on? They've killed my father,' said Kate. 'Now it's my fight too.' She was cradling her own cup of coffee in her hand. How long she'd been awake, Josh couldn't say. He knew that she'd escaped with him last night, but how long the drive up here had been he couldn't say: he'd lost consciousness soon after they'd made their getaway in the Mustang. She must have driven them up here, then treated his wounds and given him something to help him sleep. She was a brave woman, he reflected: she had lost weight in the past few days, emphasising her elegant chiselled features, but there was iron in her heart.
'That software is important. If it falls into the wrong hands then it would be incredibly dangerous,' said Kate. Her eyes flashed. 'Marshall cared about that. I care about that. So we'll do what we have to do to stop that happening.'
Something's not right, thought Josh. Something still doesn't make sense.
'We need help,' he said. 'We can't fight this on our own any more.'
'What kind of help?'
Kate's tone was nervous, as if she was frightened of something. 'My memory,' said Josh. 'It's back. Not all of it. Lots of things are still fuzzy. But enough.',�
Kate leaned across, taking his hand. 'You know where Luke is?'
Josh nodded. He took another gulp of the coffee, his eyes scanning the empty horizon. In his other hand he held a thick biscuit from the camp supplies and started chewing on it. The food was doing him good, he reflected: he was still weak, and his nerves were still in a poor state, but he
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^m::
was still alive, and so long as he ate and rested there was no reason why he shouldn't recover.
Rest, he thought grimly, and maybe one day I'll feel fit and healthy again.
'There was a code,'Josh said.
'I saw it, the third attack in a few days,' Kate said. 'J> B, L, or B, J, L, or something.'
Josh smiled. 'I know what it means. Luke told me, shortly before I got shot. He's waiting for me. I just have to go and find him. The code tells me where he is.'
Kate reached out to touch Josh's shoulders with her outstretched palm. Her skin felt good against his.The fleeting caress was soft, feminine, caring: the kind of touch that he had thought he would never feel again. 'Where, Josh?' she said softly. 'Where?'
'Like I said, we need help. We can't fight this on our own. It's too big.'
'But Luke is waiting for you!
Josh wondered if he could hear a hint of irritation in her voice. 'My memory is back. I know who I am, and what I have to do,' he said.
Kate took her hand away from his shoulder. 'And that is?'
'My name is Josh Harding. I'm a British soldier, serving in the SAS, but on secondment to anti-terrorist operations. I was sent out here on a mission to find Luke. And I found him.'Josh hesitated. The pieces of the jigsaw were reassembling in his head, but hg knew that the picture was still some way from being complete. 'Now I know where he is, my duty is clear.' He paused, looking down to the wilderness below. 'I report back for duty.'
'For duty?'
Josh nodded. 'I'm a soldier, like I said. That's what we do.'
Kate shook her head. 'You told me that you've been tortured, Josh,' she said. 'You said that first they electrocuted
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you to within an inch of your life. Next you had snakes biting you almost to death. You're weak, Josh. Your nerves are shot to pieces. You're not thinking straight.'
Josh could see the intensity in her expression: her stare was focused completely upon him, as if he were a patient on her examining table. 'Trust me, Josh. I'm a doctor. I know about these things.'
'I have to check back in. I know where Luke is, but I can't handle this on my own any more. I've already been captured twice. I can't expect you to help me again. I need to go and get reinforcements, go and get Luke, bring him in, and get this thing over with.'
'You're missing something.'
Josh said nothing.
'Why were you shot, Josh?' Kate persisted. 'Why is Luke just sending messages to you? Why isn't he calling for the reinforcements?'
She paused, lowering her gaze to the ground.'There's something else going on. What happened between you and Luke?'
Josh shook his head. 'I can't remember.'
'Try, Josh, try.'
Josh concentrated. The memories were swimming in and out of his head. Catching them was like trying to catch fish in the river with your bare hands. As soon as you grabbed for them, they were already gone. What was I talking to Luke about, he asked himself?
His head was throbbing with pain and frustration. Nothing was clear. 'I have to check back in with my unit,' he said flatly. 'It's my duty'
'Just tell me where Luke is,' said Kate. 'We'll go find him together.'
'No,' snapped Josh. 'I have to go back in.'
'You're an idiot.'
'No - I have to get back to the Regiment.'
'That's a dumb choice.'
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'I'm a soldier,' said Josh angrily. 'We don't have choices. We just have our duty. Without that, we're nothing.'
Josh held the phone in his hand. From their hiding place, it had been an hour's walk down into the valley and across the plain before he'd found the road. Then it had been another half-mile before he'd found one of the payphones dotted along the highway for stranded motorists. The pain had been intense, stumbling his way through the scrub and boulders.The swelling in his chest from the snakebites was getting worse: two thick purple bruises were spreading out across his chest. And his legs were still weak from the electric shocks.
My body is weak, but my nerves are even weaker, he told himself. Kate is wrong. I have to get back to base. / can't do this by myself.
'My name is Josh Harding,' he said, as soon as the call was answered. 'I need to speak to the Administrative Vice Consul.' He was ringing through to the British consulate in Los Angeles, the British government office nearest to Arizona. Every British embassy and major consulate in the world has an administrative vice-consul: supposedly a person in charge of the running of the office, but in reality the representative of The Firm, Regiment slang for the security services. The vice-consul would know who he was. And he would know what to do. If a Regiment operative was in trouble anywhere in the world, that was who they called.
'He's in a meeting,' said a secretary when Josh was put through.
Josh checked his watch. It was six-fifteen. Dusk was starting to settle over the wilderness. It was quiet. There was the low murmur of a breeze, but nothing else.
It was the quiet space between day and night, reflected Josh. A good time for a man to disappear.
*
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'Tell him it's Josh Harding,' he snapped. 'From Hereford.'
'I'll put you through,' said the secretary. 'Right away'
'Kenneth Adams here,' said a voice on the line. 'Who's this?'
The accent was pure Oxbridge, noted Josh. It probably belonged to a man in his mid-thirties, who'd drifted between the Foreign Office and The Firm. Maybe sandy-coloured hair, maybe dark. Either way he'd be a Rupert.
'Josh Harding.'
There was a pause. Josh could imagine the surprise on the man's face.
'Bugger it, man, where the hell have you been?' said Adams. 'We've been looking for you everywhere.'
I bet you have, thought Josh. Could have tried a bit bloody harder as well while I was getting my balls fried for Queen and Country.
'I got held up,' said Josh. 'But I'm coming in.'
'Where are you?'
Josh rolled his eyes up towards the sky. Thick streaks of red were smudged across the horizon as the sunlight ebbed away. The moon was already making its ascent. Bloody nowhere, he thought sourly.
'Arizona,' he replied. 'Keeping a low profile.' He paused, checking his watch. It was getting late, and he needed a few hours' rest before he attempted another journey. 'I've got access to a vehicle. I could be in LA by the morning.'
'Stay right where you are,' said Adams fiercely. 'Give us the coordinates, and we'll pick you up right now.'
'I can come in under my ownjgteam,' said Josh. 'I'll see you in the morning.'
'No,' snapped Adams. 'Just tell us where you are and we'll get our American friends to lend us a Black Hawk for the night. We want you back on dry land.'
'I need to rest,' said Josh. 'It can wait until morning.'
'You're coming in tonight, Harding,' said Adams.'And that's an order.'
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Welcome back to the world of the Ruperts, Josh told himself. Maybe I was better off without my memory.
The thunderous roar of the Sikorsky Black Hawk UH 60 shattered the silence of the scrublands. Dust and clumps of twisted grass were swept up, caught in the whirlwind of swirling air beneath the machine's rotor blades.
Josh stepped forward from behind the boulder where he had taken shelter. It was just after ten at night. It had taken him an hour to walk back to their hiding place, then there had been a brief but furious exchange with Kate when he'd told her that a chopper would be picking him up within a couple of hours.
'Come with me,' Josh said again as he heard the first rumble of the chopper echoing out across the mountains.
'No way,' she snapped back.
'I still need help,' said Josh. 'We'll find Luke together.'
'You're a fucking idiot, Josh,' she shouted.'There's something wrong, I tell you. Something else that you haven't remembered. This is a trap.'
'This is the British Army,' said Josh, 'Don't be ridiculous.'
'It's your neck on the block,' Kate said coldly, turning away and disappearing among the boulders.'But if you need me, if anything goes wrong, I'll be waiting by that phone booth you used on the road.'
Her words were still echoing in his ears. If anything goes wrong, I'll be waiting.