He tried to block out the drilling pain in his head and pushed up the mountain. They were a hundred metres beyond the stream when Porter saw the two ramblers.
They were charging down the track like a couple of bats out of hell, seventy metres ahead of Bald and Porter. They were decked out in matching blue-and-green jackets and beanie hats, Porter noted. One of the ramblers was much bigger than his mate. His chest was wide as a forty-gallon drum. His arms were like a pair of hams stuffed in a sack. His legs were as big as grain silos. The second guy ran along a few paces behind Tank. He was tall and scrawny and he sported a shabby goatee.
Suddenly Goatee lost his footing and stacked it, crashing to the ground ten or so metres ahead of Bald and Porter. Tank about-turned and hurried over to his mate, helping him to his feet. As he stood up, Tank caught glanced down at Porter and hesitated. Something like recognition flashed behind his eyes. As if he’d seen Porter somewhere before. Then he turned and carried on down the trail with Goatee staggering after him, wincing with pain. Porter watched the pair of them scrabble down towards the Blaen Taf Fawr stream. A few moments later they were lost to the mist.
‘Why were those two in such a hurry?’ Porter asked nobody.
Bald shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re worried they’re going to miss Kilroy.’
Porter let his gaze linger on the trail a moment longer. Maybe it was nothing. But something about the two ramblers had been off, he thought. A niggling concern picked away at the base of his skull like an icepick. He thought again about that look in Tank’s eyes. Something about that had been familiar.
‘Fuck ’em,’ said Bald. ‘Let’s get moving. There’s a beer with my name on it down the Newmarket Arms, and I don’t want to keep it waiting.’
They moved on. The incline quickly steeped beyond the stream. Porter could feel his legs burning with the effort. Beads of sweat clung to his face. The mist thickened. It was like walking through a cloud. Five hundred metres further on Porter spotted a small stone obelisk to the north. The Tommy Jones memorial was named after a miner’s son from Maerys who’d died a hundred years ago after getting lost on the Fan. On a rank winter’s day it was a useful marker. Porter knew they were getting closer to the point where the track split into a V and led towards Pen y Fan. He kept thinking back to the two ramblers they’d passed by. Why had they been tearing down the trail? It wasn’t like walkers to be in such a rush. They usually took their time to walk down, admiring the view. Usually the only people in a hurry on the Fan were the students taking SAS Selection.
Porter was still wondering about them when Bald stopped dead in his tracks.
‘Shit,’ he said.
Porter looked up. Then he stopped too. He spotted three figures stumbling along the track, fifty metres ahead. A man and a woman in bright-yellow jackets, edging along either side of a heavyset figure wearing army fatigues and a sweater. The man and woman had their arms slung around his shoulders. Even at this distance, Porter could see the guy was a mess. His head hung low, and his arms were limp at his sides. Blood glistened down his front, spattering his legs. Then Porter took a few steps closer to the man, and his blood froze in his veins.
He was looking at Victor Vowden.
NINE
0703 hours
.
Dread seized hold of Porter. Like a hand clasping tight around his throat. He sprinted up the trail, racing towards Vowden and the ramblers. Bald rushed after him, blowing hard. Up ahead the woman caught sight of the two Blades and frantically shouted at them, waving them over. At the same time the other guy was setting Vowden down carefully at the side of the track. The wounded Blade’s arms were hanging by his sides, big and heavy and limp.
‘Out of the way!’ Porter barked at the ramblers as he drew close.
The man and woman stepped back from Vowden, giving Porter room. He could feel his heart pounding as he dropped to one knee beside the wounded sergeant and examined his injuries. Straightaway Porter could see that Vowden was in a bad way. His eyes were dancing wildly in their sockets. His left shoulder had been pulverised and there was a ragged hole in the middle of his chest wide as a tube of Smarties. Blood was bubbling around the wound, disgorging steadily and running down his front. Porter detected a wet sucking noise every time Vowden breathed in. He snapped his gaze to the man and woman.
‘What the fuck happened?’
The pair of them swapped worried looks. For a moment they were too stunned to respond. Then the man spoke. He was a grey-haired guy with the doughy build of someone who spent most of his life sitting in an open plan office. His lips were visibly trembling.
‘We found him over there,’ the man said, pointing up the trail, in the distant direction of Pen y Fan. ‘He was on the peak. They both were.’
‘Both?’ Bald demanded. ‘Where’s the other one?’
‘Dead.’ The man shook his head. ‘My wife, she checked his pulse.’
‘So you just left him there?’
The man hesitated. He looked defensively at Bald. ‘There was nothing we could do for him.’
Porter glanced quickly at his mucker. The Jock’s fists were so tightly clenched that the knuckles had shaded white. He swung back to Vowden. The guy was making a gargling noise in the back of his throat. He was drowning in his own blood, Porter realised grimly. There was no point trying to grill him. Vowden could hardly breathe, let alone try to speak. Porter looked up at the couple.
‘Did you see who did this?’
The husband said nothing for a long, cold beat. He was staring at Vowden. Watching the blood bubble and hiss around the bullet wound, like water gurgling out of a blocked sink. He was transfixed. The guy had probably never seen a bullet wound in his life, Porter told himself.
‘We’ve only seen two ramblers,’ the woman replied falteringly. ‘We saw them leaving the peak, not long before we found him. They were running down, real fast. Like they were in a hurry.’ She turned to the man. ‘Isn’t that right, Gary?’
Gary nodded. ‘Yeah. A couple of ramblers.’
‘Nobody else?’ Porter said.
‘Nobody,’ said Gary.
Porter looked at Bald. Bald looked at Porter. Both of them thinking the same thing.
The ramblers we just passed.
Had to be.
And suddenly he understood why they had been in such a blind hurry to get down the side of the mountain. Because they had just shot two SAS instructors. He looked back to the woman and tried to keep his voice calm and controlled. ‘What did they look like?’
The woman thought for a beat. ‘One of them was tall. Shabby-looking? He had a beard. The other one, he was bigger. Like a wrestler, you know. That kind of big.’
Porter glanced down the track, his mind racing ahead of him. Working the angles. The two ramblers had been tearing down the trail towards the Blaen Taf Fawr stream. That trail led only one way, Porter knew. Back up a low rise before it descended steeply towards the Storey Arms.
Towards the instructors and the students.
Porter turned towards the husband and wife. There was no time to lose. He cocked his head at the man.
‘Have you got a wallet on you? Driver’s licence, credit card, anything like that?’
The man blinked. ‘What for?’
‘Just hand it over!’
The husband nodded anxiously, then dug his wallet out of his jacket pocket. His hand was shaking as he passed it to Porter. The Blade flipped open the wallet and fished out the husband’s driving licence. Then he took the small laminate card and placed it over the gaping hole in Vowden’s chest. Like all SAS operators Porter had a secondary level of expertise alongside his specialist skill, and he’d done training as a medic during his time at Hereford. The strip of plastic would act as an emergency occlusive dressing, letting in enough air to help Vowden breathe, but at the same time stopping any excess air from escaping and causing his lungs to collapse.
‘Stay here,’ Porter said to the man, handing his wallet back minus the blood-stained licence. ‘Keep the wound sealed and whatever you do, don’t move him or you’ll fuck up his spinal cord. Got it?’
The man stared at Vowden for a beat. Then he snapped out of his stupor and looked at Porter. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To send for help. Mountain rescue will have to get up here and lift him out.’
If the poor fucker isn’t already dead by then
, Porter didn’t add.
The man nodded. Porter shot to his feet and looked to Bald. They didn’t need to say anything. They both knew the score. What had to be done. At that moment two armed SAS killers were scrambling down the side of the mountain and heading directly for the students and their instructors. Porter didn’t know what they were planning. He didn’t know who they were, or why they’d put the drop on two Regiment sergeants on a bitter windswept morning in the Brecon Beacons. All he knew was that his mates were in danger, and he had to stop the ramblers before they got to them.
He spun away from Vowden and hurried back down the track in the direction of the Storey Arms, praying that he wasn’t too late.
TEN
0705 hours.
It was time.
Stankovic crept back from the window and left Dragan on OP duty. He took out his phone, pulled up the basic menu showing the last incoming call and hit Dial. His heart was starting to beat faster now. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Dragan and a couple of the other guys had taken a load of speed to keep themselves alert, but Stankovic didn’t need drugs to stay focused. Never had. The thrill of the mission was enough for him. The thought of how many men were going to die, that was like the world’s best high. It made him horny.
The driver of the Mondeo answered on the third buzz.
Stankovic said, ‘We’re ready. Targets all in place.’
There was nothing to commemorate the moment. No big statement, no one saying, ‘Well, this is it, now,’ or any other crap, like they did in all the big Hollywood movies Stankovic used to watch in his apartment in Belgrade.
Kavlak simply said, ‘Okay.’
Stankovic said, ‘Park in the south-west corner. As close as you can get to the students. Just make sure you steer clear of the trucks.’ He hesitated, anticipating the other man’s concern. ‘It’s going to attract attention, parking that close. But it’s our best point of attack.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.’
Stankovic killed the call. Then he checked the time.
0706 hours.
Fourteen minutes to go.
Twenty seconds later, Kavlak fired up the Mondeo and steered out of the lay-by. He headed south on the A470 towards the Storey Arms. He kept his eyes on the road and kept the Mondeo purring along at forty per, well below the speed limit. He was Zen calm.
This was it. There was no going back. After six months of planning, poring over maps and figuring out routes and possible scenarios, they were moving forward now. The ball was finally rolling.
It felt good.
Petrovich sat up straight in the front passenger seat. His knees were bouncing twice as fast now. The speed in his bloodstream mixing with the adrenaline and the anxiety he was feeling. Kavlak ignored his jumpy nephew and focused on the road. The rain was drumming its fingers against the windscreen. They passed a few cars heading in the opposite direction. They passed a lorry parked in a lay-by on the other side of the road next to a greasy mobile food van. They passed trees and hills the colour of granite.
Three minutes later, the Storey Arms slid into view.
Kavlak slowed the Mondeo down to fifteen per and hung a right into the car park. It wasn’t hard to spot the students. They were sat in a big group ten metres or so from the entrance next to the two Land Rovers. The four Bedford army trucks and three Range Rovers were parked up in a line twenty metres or so further along from the students. They sat mostly in silence, some sipping at their brews from their metal mugs. They were soaked to the bone and looked thoroughly miserable. Kavlak smiled to himself. A few minutes now, the rain was going to be the least of their worries.
He pulled up as close as he dared to the students, eight metres from the group. He angled the Mondeo so that the front end was facing away from the students and facing out across the Fan Fawr mountain to the west. He glanced up at the rear-view, checking that the car boot was pointing directly at the students. Eight metres. Close enough to wipe out most of the students, and a good number of the instructors too. He shunted the Mondeo into Park and killed the engine.
Almost there.
He was about to climb out when he saw the instructor marching over. Kavlak clocked him in the rear-view. A short, stumpy Brit with a large birth-mark on one side of his face and tiny black eyes that gleamed menacingly, like the points of a couple of sharpened knives. The instructor beat a path around to the driver’s side of the Mondeo and rapped his knuckles on the window. Kavlak thumbed the automatic slider and lowered the glass halfway. He looked up and smiled. The instructor glared at him. His facial muscles were twitching. He looked pissed off.
‘You can’t park here,’ the instructor said, pointing to the students. ‘This is an army training exercise. Got it? Go a couple of miles down the road. There’s another car park there. You can use that one.’